Fishing for trout- favourite tricks and tactics

[Lawyer Daggit]

Does anyone have any favourite tricks and tactics when fishing for trout.

I make artificial trout eggs out of a synthetic kitchen cleaner or piece of foam-melt some glycerine and add anniseed oil (sometimes sold as anise oil) available from chemists.

[Bob A]

Fishing for trout means different things to different people.
Trout fishing means boats, beer and trolling to some. Some think of hiking in the high country. Some like to drown worms or maybe synthetic eggs.
For me, trout fishing is quietly working upstream on a rocky creek or river. Stay low, move quiet and put your fly down gently on a nice "fishy" spot. Watch your drag and stay focused on the fly.
The only "tip" I can offer is something it took me far too long to understand. Most flies are tied to catch customers, not necessarily fish. There is a great satisfaction in tying your own and its not that hard to tie a fly that catches fish. Much like loading for your 30-30. Same tactics. Stay quiet and get close.

Bob A

[Lawyer Daggit]

Bob I agree with you- most flies- like most rifle calibers are designed to catch customers. There are usually only a handful of patterns you really 'need' on a given set of water- but what the hell, throwing everything in your fly box at a fickle trout is half the fun.

[iceman]

Up here we use mooselook or williams wablers usually trolled slowly but you can cast them also from shore. We ususlly have a small hook 18 to 24 inches behind the spoon with either a small worm, or a streamer type fly. (mickey finn) Favorite colors for the spoons are orange or blue. A willow leaf shape spoon called clear lake is also popular. Basically lots of flash to get their attention to the bait behind.

[BenT]

I fish Brook trout. When I want to go to the other bank , I step across to the other side. I use worms , don't get a chance to use flys. By then the stream is grown over with grass , can't get a line down it. So it's a spring time activity for me. When I was young everybody ran cattle in their pastures so you could fish all summer. It was like fishing in a city park , cows kept all the grass down.

[243dave]

The biggest mistake people make when trout-fishing is they use to heavy a fishing line, the thicker the line the easier the fish can see it. I generally use 4lb test but will use 2lb if fishing for small native-trout. I don't fly fish mainly because the streams I fish are small and the over-hanging trees won't allow you to work a fly. That being said there is one spinner I always have on hand, its the french aglia(the plain ones) in size 1. They spin better than most and has always seemed to to catch fish. Also I carry a large assortment of blue fox spinners in different colors, sometimes a certain color will catch fish while the others are useless. If I'm fishing where the trout are freshly stocked I always carry a can of corn and very small gold hooks that can be covered by a kernel of corn. First before I even cast is walk to a deep pool of water and throw in a bit of corn and see if the fish are biting and swiping at the corn. If so bait up the little gold hook with a kernel and (no sinkers) drift it down and catch some trout. The thing about using such a small hook is you got to let them swallow it, let'em run with it a while before you set the hook. And lastly carry an assortment of hooks and sinkers so if nothing seems to be working catch some crickets, grasshoppers, worms, crayfish, just anything you think may catch a fish and give it a try. If you want to seriously catch trout don't be afraid to wade out and get wet if you do I bet you'll catch more than your buddies that like to stay dry. Dave

[bdhold]

of course I'm a long-haired fly fisherman, but a trick I learned from Frank Smethurst when he was down here filming last winter was Potter's Milking Eggs, "when you absolutely, positively need to catch a fish right now"
Tailwater fishing is all about midges - size 20 and smaller, and so an attractor fly above a midge dropper may not be a must, but it's smart.
So I started using potters milking eggs for my attractor and while I don't catch many more fish on the attractor, it seems to bring them into the dropper that much better.


as far as approach goes, stealth is everything.
I heard once, there is no such thing as a smart fish - trout have an IQ of 6 (don't know who tested it, but that's what I read - and carp have an IQ of 12). A big fish got that way not by being smart, but by being a coward.

[alnitak]

Tailwater fishing is all about midges - size 20 and smaller, and so an attractor fly above a midge dropper may not be a must, but it's smart.

+1

If you are not into flyfishing for them, I suggest Trout Magnets and Hildebrandt Flickers (using your hand on the line to "flick" them and retrieve -- not the rod/reel).

[Charles]

Trout fishing in the gin clear and fairly calm eastern streams in one things and the fishing the big, fast and often murky western steams and rivers is quit another.

The Eastern guy can "match the hatch" and apply all of the arts and science of dry fly fishing.

The Western guy mostly sticks to spinner baits, wet flys, streamers and bucktails in running water. In the lakes it is salmon eggs and worms.

[Blaine]

Most of the really nice wild trout water out here is a single barbless hook and no bait....A Panther Martin with a legal hook, gold, is reliable. I don't care for the lowland, planted rainbows but a single egg with a mini-marshmellow back works pretty good. Maggots, too, and of course a red wriggler.

[KCSO]

When I was a kid we spen a month in Washington visiting relatives. My Uncle Dick took us trout fishing. he rigged us up with all these little tiny hooks and salmon eggs and we fished for hours and never got a bite, meanwhile the fellows in the boat next to us are pullin' in big trout one after another. Finaly my grandad can't stand it any more... "Hey what are you guys usin". "Crawlers and #4 bullhead hooks, ya want some, we got all these litter suckers we can use".

In short order we re rigged and started haulin' in the trout. My Uncle refused to use the crawlers because that's not how you catch trout. We hauled in a couple of limits in about 2 hours.

Bottom line is you feed 'em what they want to eat and that varies from day to day. Here in NE we fish for trout on a couple cold creeks in the N/E part of the state and the best rig is a small Lindy rig with either a crawler or a leech. Put it on a light line and let it drift down stream with the current till a trout grabs it. If you really want to P/O the purists use the same rig on a fly rod!

[Joel]

Dry/nymph dropper around here on the Yuba. Hoppers soon enough

In Montana, my favorite uncle showed me how he uses a fresh piece of sucker filet, carefully carves and ties it into a sculpin, elk hair hackel, split tail for action. I would outfish him ten to one, but everything he caught was large.

[Jason_W]

I prefer to catch them in the winter, through the ice. No bugs that time of year.

[BigSky56]

for brookies cutts and bows lawyer fly on spin gear and clear bobber for high mtn lakes, in streams panther martin some w and wo rooster tails and in all the colors every day is different works for the Sierra mtns or Rocky mtns. Hoppers work great streams or lakes. danny

[Bigahh]

I fish them either wet, or dry, but my favorite is Brook Trout with my favorite wet fly called a "Pass Lake" I can fish this fly wet or dry.

[gak]

Just a few (3-5') feet of clear lead backed by 10'-30' of regular line, keeping the end roughly in sight, a medium size trout hook and a yellow (not red) salmon egg--two even better, but might fall off on own, giving the fish a free meal. Let it get tugged along by natural current either in full sunlight--sun at your back--or along/under a shady bank. Also the same set up literally tossed (if like me you're not much of a caster!) into the turbulent, frothy bottom of a small waterfall (where you can't see them, but neither can they you, and all you care about is that fabulous tug!). Also, let the egg run under the surface along (a few inches from the edge of) the strips of dense green undergrowth in the main stream. They're hiding under there for shade and to ambush food coing along (yours!). With any of these spots, let your egg get tugged by the water every which way with little intervention on your part. They see that enticing flash of yellow jerking around and bam! Medium deep (1-3') "pools"--still within the main stream current...with fairly rapid current, where it may be sunny but the visibility (for all) is a little blurred ('cause of the current, not murk). The current from upstream just carries 'em right into this--where they sometimes idle a bit, moderately fighting the current, and which is sometimes a rich feeding ground too. The yellow eggs also seem to leave a better oil slick (sorry for the timing on that one) in calmer water, also a tasty attractant from what I can tell.


These sophisticated Huck Finn methodologies have worked well for me for many years

[bdhold]

the Brits call that trotting, and they've developed special tackle for it, 11' rods, free-spinning reels - although, they use it for coarse fishing - roach and chubb.

on our side of the pond, we call it steelheading.

we also had a line of tackle developed in the 50s for the technique - using a fly rod and Wright-McGill FreLine reel with super light mono. A few other Denver reel makers for this, Humphrey, and several larger versions from the PNW.

[Meeteetse]

My favorite spots in Wyoming are full of Brook, Rainbow and Cutthroat trout that seem to like black gnats and ants in the 16 to 24 range. Best on a very light fly rod with a long tippet. In many areas I use a short six or seven piece backpack type fly rod because of the tight conditions. The rod is a little stiffer than I prefer but works in narrow streams and beaver ponds.

[bdhold]

the Japanese are crazy about soft light-line rods. And since they mass-transit everywhere, multi-piece is the norm, since they don't want to offend anyone on the train.
this is a 6-pc. 7' 3-wt. glass rod made by Axisco - feels a bit like a noodle, but has really good control for fishing in tight. Blue Dunn Fly Shop has mailed a lot of these rods this way - the owner Hisao used to guide on the Madison.

I fish it in the tightest hill country creeks for endemic Guadalupe bass, which are Texas brook trout

http://www.bluedun.net/RodsandReels_pac ... nglish.htm
Axisco also makes a shorter 10-pc. rod.
Fenwick sells a line of glass rods in Japan and Hisao also exports these
http://www.bluedun.net/RodsandReels-Fen ... nglish.htm

oh, and if it makes you guys feel any better, I post gun stuff on the fish boards, too...
http://fiberglassflyrodders.yuku.com/topic/13458?page=2

[Lawyer Daggit]

I have a 3-4 weight Daiwa amorphous whisker rod, with 3 weight line on a hardy reel (nothing sounds like a Hardy when the reel screams- reckon they must have an accoustic technician). I swear by it.

All trout caught with it have been small- but a small trout on light gear can feel like a very large fish.

I can understand the Japanese. However, leaving aside their sensitivities, while I have two pack rods, there has never been a pack rod made that feels like a two piece- fewer joins the better I reckon.

[bdhold]

you'd be surprised how nice spigot-ferrule multi-piece rods can be, especially in glass.
Joe Fisher pioneered them in the US (and made most blanks for Hardy).
the modulus change going through the spigot can be dialed in so a properly designed spigot has no hinge and the weight is insignificant on this light rod.
My 5/6-wt. Fisher Sterling, along with a Fisher 7-wt. multi, is my travel rod, and fishing for AK rainbows and dollies, the 5/6 has landed several 12-lb. red salmon in the bycatch.

yes, Hardy reels sing. I have a Hardy Hydra from the early 60s that the casting on it rings like a bell - loudest reel ever made - people have recorded it for the F/X on their fishing videos, and when I'm hooked up I can see people's heads spinning a quarter-mile away on the river.

sorry about the warmwater quarry

[fatoldfool]

Trout fishing to me is the tiny clear mountain streams in WV, a 6 ft ultralight with 2# line and 1/16 oz spinners....6 little native trout, a small ci skillet, some peanut oil, a small fire and a few freshly dug ramps. Wash them down with a warm George Killians red!