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Sea trout can be successfully caught throughout the year, but autumn is for most mefo anglers one of the best and most beautiful seasons for fishing on the Baltic Sea. This is because autumn ensures that there are a great many fish close to the shore, and they come in all sizes! In addition to the large "Greenlanders" schools, capital sea trout are now always in casting distance, slowly preparing for the upcoming rise. But also so-called chromers, powerful blank fish that will not ascend, linger immediately behind the first weed patches and stones in the shoreline to feed. Autumn is an exciting time for sea trout fishing, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
Silver from the baltic sea - the sea trout
Autumn offers us the most varied sea trout fishing we can imagine. This is partly because we can fish a variety of different places, and partly because the food supply on the coast is now richly covered and our choice of the right fly is not so essential. Another great advantage in the fall is the high abundance of fish near the shore. Many half-strength sea trout now gather in the bays and fjords, while on the open coast patrol single, large chromers.
In addition, the colored fish come in the fall, which slowly prepare for the upcoming ascent into the river systems. The so-called ascenders are sexually mature fish, sometimes in stately sizes and often in good condition! However, these risers should be treated particularly gently so that the upcoming reproduction is not endangered. A drill as short as possible and a quick removal of the fly, preferably in the landing net, are commendable so that the fish retains sufficient strength. Also we should note that in autumn there are special regulations both for colored fish and for the spawn rivers, which in most cases come into force from mid-October. So, before fishing, you should find out about the rules and closed seasons of the hunting grounds.
The large selection of places and the numerous food in the water often make it not easy to find the beginning. So that the start of the fall season works safely and how you can optimize your catches in the fall with 5 simple tips, we tell you now!
The right fly is not al you need to know about the sea trout!
Tip 1: The right time
The water temperature in autumn is usually between 4 and 15 degrees. Temperatures in which sea trout are particularly comfortable, often active throughout the day and always hunting. So when should be the right time? You can expect a sea trout bite at any time in the fall, but there are certain phases when the sea trout are particularly active and when catches increase. These phases happen with the change of water, or with the change of tide. Correct, the Baltic Sea also has a tidal range, even if it is hardly noticeable for us on some days. The tidal range in the Baltic Sea changes about every 6 hours and on some days it is hardly noticeable because it is so small that a strong wind can compensate for the tidal range. However, the sea trout notice the smallest differences and like to hunt especially when there is one of these tidal changes from low tide to high tide or vice versa. Nowadays, it is easy to find out when this change occurs in the individual areas on the Internet. At this time, you should definitely be in the water and concentrated fishing!
Morning, Midday, Evening- The best times in the fall are the hours around a tide change.
Tip 2: The right conditions
Sea trout love moving water, because the waves and turbidity offer the fish protection as well as plenty of food. Many of the sea trout's prey, such as shrimp or kelp runners, are completely at the mercy of the waves, as they cannot hold on in the turbulence of the breakers. Sea trout know this all too well and hunt closer under land in the waves of the first fall storms than one might suspect. A sea trout beach is fishable for us as long as we don't have weeds on the bait all the time. The turbidity or height of the waves doesn't matter, because the fish love it!
As a rule of thumb, if you can just make out your feet in waist-high water, it's optimal turbidity. Beaches with onshore wind, preferably slightly sideways on the casting hand are always worth a try and often much more effective than the calm areas with offshore wind.
Wind and wave brings sea trout!
Tip 3: The right spots in autumn
In autumn, we can draw from the full range in our choice of spots. Whether it's a bathtub, leopard's bottom or seagrass meadows, all these well-known sea trout grounds also bring fish in the fall! However, based on the site selection and also the region where you fish, the different fish can be caught more or less targeted. It is often the case, for example, that in the quiet bays of the fjords in the fall there is an increased gathering of large schools of sea trout, which are between 40 and 55 cm. In addition to Greenlanders (half-strong, shining fish), colored fish that will migrate to spawn this year also gather here. On the open coast, on the other hand, we often find single, larger fish, as well as chrome fish (bright, large fish that will not spawn this winter).
Also depending on the region, you can select a bit between many colored fish and single blank fish. In areas with many spawn rivers, such as Vejle Fjord, many colored fish gather in the fall. The island of Langeland, on the other hand, is known for blank fish, some of which are very large, in the fall and also in the winter. The colored fish here slowly move towards Fyn or Flensburg to wait for the right water level to start in the rivers. Langeland, on the other hand, has no spawning rivers worth mentioning and is therefore uninteresting for fish ready to spawn. However, exceptions always prove the rule and so naturally colored fish can be found off the coast of Langeland.
There is no such thing as the best bottom for the fall, so it is advisable to have a few places in your selection that have different structures before fishing. If there is no activity at spot one, it is worth changing to a completely different bottom. This can be repeated until you find the fish. We rarely fish a spot for more than an hour should no fish show on the surface or on the fly.
Closed seasons and protection zones play an important role in autumn! (Source:https://kms.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer)
Besides closed seasons and protection zones it is important to be able to distinguish a bright fish from a colored fish. Not every sea trout that is silver is a chrome fish and so it is all the more important for us to deal with this issue in advance. An important indication of a silver fish that may be taken during the closed season is the loose scales. The strongly shining scales fall off already at light contact with the net or wet hand. This is a clear sign of an unprotected fish! In case of doubt it is always better to let the fish swim again. It should also be mentioned that the removal of blank fish is not permitted in all regions or states, also there are entire fjords, such as the Odense Fjord, where fishing for sea trout is completely forbidden at a certain time!
Tip 4: Flies for autumn
Describing the right fly for fall is difficult, much like with place selection, we have a wide variety to choose from, as most sea trout prey are abundant in the fall! We have had very good success with two different tactics for fly selection. One is flies that count as all-around patterns and represent different foods, such as a shrimp or a small fish. A proven pattern is for example "The Universal" also known as Autumn-Fly. On the other hand, we adapt the flies to the places. On the wide open coast it is always worth fishing a fly that represents a herring or Tobias fish. If you are looking for the blank, big autumn trout, you will surely be rewarded sooner or later. On places with lots of bladderwrack The colors of the flies are predominantly brownish tones, similar to the bladderwrack itself or fading into orange. We prefer to fish the so-called channels and seagrass meadows with shrimp imitations, as they are abundant on the sandbars between the channels. Natural colors like tan or sand are optimal, but also stimulating colors or salmon pink like with a Pattegrisen are always successful.
Part of the right fly in the right place is optimal bait presentation. By minimal change in the retrieve speed or the length of the strips, the bait guidance of the different patterns can be optimized and thus lead to success. A Tobias fish, for example, is significantly more catchable when it is chased through the water with fast long pulls and a kelp runner is maximally catchable when it is retrieved rather evenly with pulls of different lengths. We adjust the speed and also the length of the pulls and even pauses to the particular prey animal. So it is advantageous to study not only the silver of the Baltic Sea, but also the preferred food of the sea trout, in order to achieve a perfect baiting of the different fly patterns.
A beautiful blank fish! They can look like this all year.
Tip 5: The right tackle
For sea trout fishing in the fall, we advise medium weight tackle due to the usually rough conditions. The rod can gladly be a class #6 up to a #8 with 9.0 ft or 9.6 ft, which has a medium-fast to fast action, so that tight loops and a high line speed are possible. This is because these two points provide good casting distance with minimal effort and that too in windy conditions!
A Slow Intermediate fly line is usually the first choice for many sea trout anglers - and rightly so! But intermediate lines or shooting heads are also a good choice in the rough fall when the waves are a bit higher. An ideal line or shooting head for the coast features a perfect combination of stable control in low wind and tremendous shooting ability even against the wind. These are fly lines with a head length of 9 to 12 meters, whose weight is shifted to the front part of the head. The construction of Coastal lines from Guideline is a very good example.
Medium weight tackle - the right choice in the fall.
As a fly reel, of course, a model should be chosen that fits the rod class and can also handle the salinity of the North Sea or Baltic Sea. A closed, strong brake system with a buttery-smooth line pull-off will help you the most in the fight, even if a really big sea trout gets in, which can be expected at any time.
The leader should not be chosen too fine, because sea trout are not among the leader shy fish and you can never tell how big the next sea trout will be that grabs your fly. A 9ft long leader with a 0.30mm diameter tip and a 0.26mm tippet are a good guide. The total length of the leader should be about 1.5 times the rod length. So it should be about 4 - 4.5 meters long.
A stripping basket is an absolute must on the coast, because without a basket you will lose the sometimes important last meters in the casting distance and it can also be very annoying when the line gets caught in the bladderwrack due to the waves.
Fall is treacherous for its storms and shifting winds. Polarized glasses are an absolute must when fishing for sea trout. Not only will the glasses make it easier for you to wade on the sometimes very slippery rocks of the Baltic Sea, but more importantly, they will protect your eyes from a Pattegriesen that has gone off course due to a shifting wind!
Sea trout are fierce fighters and colored fish should be netted quickly. For this reason, a wading landing net is also one of our tackle tips. The landing net should have a large enough opening to quickly and gently net the jumpy fish. A rubber net or a rubberized mesh, belong for us to the first choice. Because such a net is not only good for the fish, but it also dries faster and also takes less odor.
A sufficiently large landing net with rubberized net - an absolute must for us on the coast.
Autumn is the golden time in the deciduous forests and in the Baltic Sea!
At no time are there more sea trout on the Baltic coast than in autumn. A high food supply, the approaching winter and last but not least the ascent into the spawning rivers ensure that especially many sea trout are within casting distance of our flies. This makes fall one of the best sea trout times of the year for us. Confidence in moving water and patience will ensure that autumn will also be a golden time for you, we are sure!
For a successful sea trout fishing in autumn we have put together some of our tackle tips for you. We wish you a lot of fun on the water and tight lines.
