Lake Sarısu, Şərbət-kuba

At the very first chance to break away from the city bustle, I decided to scout Lake Sarısu for fishing spots. Having driven as far as Sabirabad, we turned off toward the Kura River and drove to the crossing over the Araz (Araks) River, then along a dirt road, past a few villages, we reached the lake. I have to say this lake is very big, and there are only a few approaches to the water with minimal shoreline vegetation (reeds) on the Sabirabad-Kürdəmir side, where you can rent a boat. Unfortunately, we rushed it and pulled up at the very first fishermen's hut that matched the descriptions. It turned out to be the wrong one... :) We took the boats, loaded up and set off toward the open water. We had to push our way through reeds and underwater weeds for a while before we got out onto the main body of water in the boats. As is usual at Azeri fishing huts, the boats leaked and were left over from Soviet times. So every so often we had to bail out water. We were catching roach and small carp. I have to say they were biting pretty well. But because those Soviet boats there, it must be said, are extremely uncomfortable, after just an hour of fishing our butts had gone "square", and we had no strength or desire left to stay in a tub that was constantly rocking and taking on water. On top of that, the prospect of spending the night by the water under the open sky (we'd have had to leave the car with one of the locals to avoid any trouble while we were away on the shore) and feeding the local mosquitoes didn't thrill us. In the end, we lost a lot of precious time, and we decided to relocate to our beloved Sherbetka, which was about 50 km away, so as not to waste the night. We packed up and rolled off to spots we already knew...

I recommend all catfish anglers head to Sherbetka right away: the catfish are really on! It's highly advisable to catch plenty of live bait or medium-sized frogs beforehand. Fish with ordinary ledger lines. As soon as it starts getting dark, all the non-predatory fish stop biting and the catfish take over the water. Every so often you hear the splashes of hunting catfish all around. They bite actively from 18:00-19:00 right through till morning. There's a short break at night between 3 and 4, when the bite eases off a bit. Best to use live bait (a live small fish), cut bait or dead fish, frogs. Unfortunately I can't brag about any decent specimens from this trip, but we fished pretty well. If you're going to Sherbetka, be sure to take something against mosquitoes - it's just horrific how many of them there are right now. And if it's also dead calm in the evening and at night, then without mosquito repellent you're in real trouble. Luckily, I had a little repellent left and my limbs stayed more or less untouched, but on the other hand my whole back is currently one big mosquito welt (they bite through a T-shirt + shirt and through the underwear). Basically, any part of your body not treated with mosquito repellent and sitting on the side away from the wind will be cruelly punished...

Good luck fishing!