In June i was up in West Virginia and caught my first trout. Everyone one else was fly fishing and i just had my bass rod . I decided to use good ol' bucktail jig since it looked the most like a fly lure. I had a few bites including a HUGE rainbow that i got to the shallows but then he did a barrel roll and tossed my lure along with every other trout i hooked. As a matter of fact these guys were worse than bass! Luckily i eventually caught a 16in 1 1/2lb rainbow as my first trout and invited him home for dinner. My question is what lures have you guys caught trout on? (Not including flies)
Panther martins, small panfish tubes, all types of crank baits, including a CRR5 which if your not familiar is a Crankin rap. I would have to say that I don't think trout prefer large crankbaits or large baits for that matter. They want to eat a lot of small meals, which is why a lot of guys (including myself) use flies.
small spoons, inline spinner (mostly panther martin), trout magnets (1/64 oz jig heads), floating salmon eggs off the bottom. All this techniques have caught me rainbows and brookies, hopefully browns when I go up to New Hampshire in a couple days. I would recommend all of these on spinning gear. Besides the salmon eggs, which are more for ponds, all of these can be used in rivers or ponds/lakes.
X-rap, 1/4oz redeye shad, and KVD 1.0 have caught trout for me.
I have this Heddon Sonic that still murders them, so obviously, lipless cranks, deep divers, in-line spinners, grubs, marabou jigs.
Soft plastic 3" and 4" "trout worm" are popular today. Brighter colors drop shot rigged work good like 3" hand poured sluggo's in Shad colors are working in lakes with both trout and bass populations.
Soft plastic gitzit type Crappie jigs work good in 1/32 ro 1/16 oz sizes.
A wide variety of inline spinners work and 1/8 spoons like the Super Duper, are more traditional trout lures.
Tom
Small casting spoons in heavy current has worked for me what little time I've spent fishing for them. They have an impressive ability to throw a hook. Learning to fish them on fly gear is on my short list. They're a heck of a fight pound for pound.
I`ve caught plenty of Trout on jerkbaits and thin senkos.
Jerkbaits, ned rigs, and wiggle warts are all trout killers.
26", 6.5# Brown on a 3" jointed Rapala. 18", 2# Brown on 6" jointed Rebel in Rainbow pattern. That's a couple from this year.
The upper mouth on trout are very hard. I hooked into a Rainbow that was around 28" and 10#'s. Reeled all the way in and as I was going to net from the tail end, lifted his head out of the water and threw the hook. That was on Power Bait. The next day I watched him do it to another guy.
Caught a big salmon on a Mann's baby 1 crankbaits in browncraw once. I didn't have a net. It was all silver with baby size teeth. Not wanting to lose my lure trying to pick it up I slacked the line and set it free not thinking about weighing it in. My son gets those north American fisherman books. I found out it was a salmon
But for trout a inline spinner with a silver blade, dressed in white seems to work great for trout. (Smaller size)
Panther Martin's, mepps 00, joesfly spinflys in blackgnat.
Caught a laker in May on a 3" perch pattern Rapala Shad Rap crankbait.
Lots of lakers on various perch jigs ice fishing.
Overall I think any baitfish imitation that catches bass can theoretically also catch trout, the trouble is getting it deep enough. Tubes with 1+ oz jigs and dropshot rigged soft plastic minnows work with light tackle (no wire, no downrigger).
Crankbaits, jigging spoons, hair jigs, stickbaits all work.
On 8/24/2015 at 11:44 AM, *Hank said:I`ve caught plenty of Trout on jerkbaits and thin senkos.
Never had on of a jerkbait, I'll have to add that to my to-do list.
Actually I lied. I caught one trolling on an XRAP. Never caught one actually working the lure though.
Inline spinners - particularly the rooster tail with the silver blade and black body and hair seem to work best in the Adirondack streams for me on bass. Also, the rainbow trout or watermelon color rooster tail work for me as well in streams. These work well on trout as well.
Fishing for trout with jerkbait is my favorite way to catch them at the moment. I have found that I catch browns 95% of the time with jerkbaits, occasionally a rainbow or brookie, the streams and river I fish usually have equal populations of browns and rainbows, brookies are less likely other than a few select streams. Most of the time I do a twitch, twitch, pause, twitch retrieve with the pause being only a second. Majority of the time I prefer to use 2 - 3 inch rebel tracdown minnow, however one day when the browns were insanely active, I wanted to see how far I could push the size of jerkbait. I carry backpack when I fish so I have bass/pike lures even if don't plan on using them. Upgraded to 6 in x rap, first cast 20 in Brown! So I went to 7 1/2 in rapala husky jerk and caught decent sizes brown within maybe 5 casts. The 6 in x rap works well consistently in streams with browns but my go to are around 3 in range rebel tracdown or yu zuri pin minnow. Very important that if your going to use jerkbait for trout to at the very least bend down all your barbs, ideally I want to try switching out treble hooks for single hooks and see how that works. The reason being trout are fragile when it comes to catch and release. 99% of the time i release all my fish and I have caught prob over a hundred trout on jerkbait, because of having my barbs bent completely down, I have yet to release a fish that was bleeding, everyone one of them was a healthy swim off. Being a fish lover I have to stress to bend those barbs first thing after buying the lure cuz potentialy having 6 barbed hooks stuck down a fish throat will only end with a dead fish, trout areant as hardy as bass or pike. Haha wow, sorry for the length guys, I was in the state of mind that I was explaining this to someone who is very new to sport of fishing, so my bad for over explaining basic s
@smr_hga, I’m kinda surprised the Rebel Wee Craw hasn’t been mentioned, my personal favorite for trout...
Inch and a half white tube......mmmmmmmm
Baits that work well for bass and big trout; Hot n Tots, Wiggle Warts, Husky Jerks, #3 to #5 Mepps, Little Cleos in 1/3 and 2/5oz, and my personal favorite, the Rebel Wee Craw.
I have caught a ton of trout trolling to bass fishing spots using a small shad rap or shad dancer.
this thread game me a new life goal: catch a trout on a 65mm frog
Roostertails are trout lures but they catch small bass too. I have caught large trout trolling reservoirs with bass crankbaits and A-rig setups targeting bass. Usually when I catch trout using bass lures, trout are an accidental catch, not the target species.
There are several different kinds of trout. I’ve gotten lakers trolling musky sized crank baits and 3 ounce Dardevles. Smaller lakers were caught on smaller Dardevle spoons. Big brown trout on big Kastmaster spoons. Brook trout on spinners and smaller spoons. I’ve gotten the stocked rainbows on Berkeley Trout bait below a float.
Jigging lakers the hot technique is a 6" Keitech and 1oz head thrown in 80-100 ft and stroked 10-30 ft off the bottom.
Rainbows, Browns, Brookies:
Rooster Tails, Mepps, Panther Martin's (in that order deepest running to shallowest).
65 and 78 sized Pointers
Hair jig like Feider fishes
3" and thin senkos
Split shot rigged tiny tubes.
Not sure if you're planning to try and catch more trout, or if you're asking what trout have eaten while bass fishing?
I had a brown early in the spring nearly tear the rod out of my hand throwing a standard size bladed jig (white/chart.) Pretty sure it had at least 4/0 hook in it.
I get them to follow or swipe a lot, but this one straight up engulfed it. Can't find the photo ☹️
On 11/23/2019 at 5:12 AM, Eric Rybak said:this thread game me a new life goal: catch a trout on a 65mm frog
Roostertails are trout lures but they catch small bass too. I have caught large trout trolling reservoirs with bass crankbaits and A-rig setups targeting bass. Usually when I catch trout using bass lures, trout are an accidental catch, not the target species.
Your comment about the frog reminded me of an episode of Angler West Television where they caught trout on a Spro BBZ-1 fat, size 30, crazy fun stuff.
I have caught lots of trout on inline spinners.
I use Daredevils and Thomas Bouyants.
Bruce Ingram (a writer who fishes a bunch in Virginia) catches them on 7 inch Rapalas. I haven't tried one (never owned one), but I've used inline spinners like Vibrax, Mepps Aglias, etc. in places with both trout and smallmouth and done alright.
Crappie lures, large crankbaits, ned rigs... Trout fight harder than largemouth bass, so it is always fun to get them... they are just slick and slimy. Even more fun is catcing catfish on spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, jigs, and other lures. Always a heart stopper... OH SHOOT, HERE IS MY NEW BASS RECORD... then you see it is a trout or a catfish, lol!
Jerkbaits in the early spring can often attract all kinds of attention.
A-Jay
On 1/15/2020 at 7:49 AM, A-Jay said:Jerkbaits in the early spring can often attract all kinds of attention.
A-Jay
I wish we had big browns here. They're so much fun to catch, especially on jerkbaits. I have a feeling that a big part of my love for jerkbaits, is because they seem to catch everything, and big versions of everything.
You know what's a great bass lure for trout? NED rigs! I've caught a good number of trout that way, including this one!
Also 1/8oz and under inline spinners, small jerkbaits and small crankbaits can be absolute trout killers as well.