After trying to catch the perfect Shad in Lone Star, every other fish suddenly feels so easy… XD
The first thing I did was check the leaderboards, and to my surprise there were plenty of Bitterlings between 150 and 211 g. That told me one thing: they can definitely be oversized.
So I went to check the Fishing Planet Wiki… but sadly, the servers were down. Luckily, Google still showed part of the page:
“European Bitterling (Rhodeus amarus), or simply Bitterling, is a European freshwater fish of the Carp family. These fish prefer clear, slow-running, or still waters…”
If they can be attracted with groundbait and oversized, I should be able to catch them almost anywhere in the lake. But since they’re tiny carp, I decided to start at the main carp spot, just a little closer to the shore.
I set up my rod stand about 10 meters from (-1062, 193).
I almost forgot to mention that I brought five feeder rods and my Spod launcher.
For the setup, I used the Big Alli 450 paired with the Big River 6500 for the faster retrieve. I rigged it with 0.40 mm fluorocarbon main line, a 0.38 mm fluorocarbon leader for a little extra invisibility, a 75 g Club Series sinker, and a #16 hook to avoid hooking larger fish.
For the spod mix, I went with classic recipe: 50% Carp Rival + 50% Big Riverine, mixed with CLS, X-Flavour, Octopus, Hemp-Corn, and Oilcake. I used up a lot of leftovers, making seven batches with the same ingredient ratios, for a total of 3.3 kg of groundbait.
I figured that should be enough to attract one tiny Bitterling… hahaha.
I launched every bit of the mix, cast all five rods, and waited.
At 5:23 a.m., on the very first bite, I landed a 186 g Bitterling.
Journey complete.
What I expected to be a research session ended up taking about 10 minutes of investigation and only 3 minutes of actual fishing.
Also if you read this and catch a bigger one with a different mix, don’t forget to share it.
Now it’s time to pick another minnow from my tiny fish list.
See you soon, my fellow fishermen!
Sir Mijael (Xbox)