A WINDOW INTO WINTER REEF FISHING
BY LATE AUTUMN AND WITH THE onset of winter, reef fishing is a mile apart from that of summer. The available food supply is much less widely spread and, as a result, the fish change their feeding habits. We need to do the same by adjusting our tactics if we want to reap the rewards.
In the summer, and through to late autumn, the fish are widely spread as their food is plentiful. But as the winter starts to dig her claws in, nourishment becomes less easy for them to find and breaks up into smaller concentrations within specific areas and the predators have to do the same.
Cod, ling, pollack and coalfish that were recently actively hunting food have to adapt. If they charge about across a wide area in these more barren times, they’ll expend a lot of energy that they can’t easily replace. Nature is more astute than that and predators play the waiting game and let the prey fish come to them rather than making a fruitless search.
The ground feature we target becomes much more important. Whereas in the warmer months you could
