Trout Fishing Guide

Trout are fish with heightened senses and a keen awareness of their surroundings. Because of this, it is important to understand the characteristics of their species so you can be successful in luring them to your bait. The following trout fishing guide will give you the opportunity to learn about these fish, their senses, and how to best match up your fish bait so they will be attracted to it.

Trout are members of the salmon family, and they can be categorized into two types: true trout and chars. You can tell which category a trout lies by its outward characteristics. True trout have light colored skin with darker colored spots. These would include browns and rainbows. The coloring of chars is inverted; they have darker skin with lighter spots. Arctic char and brook trout are part of the char family.

You may be familiar with the idea that trout are mostly located in streams. This is because they need the current of streams in order to spawn. Sometimes trout are located in lakes; if they are, they were stocked, or else there is access to a feeder stream in the lake so they can still spawn even though their habitat is primarily in a lake. Another reason why trout mostly live in streams is because they thrive in cold water that is between 50 and 70 degrees in temperature. Because of this, streams fed by springs or melting snow make perfect habitats for these fish because their water temperatures will always be chilly. Trout can live in other types of water, but they must be located in regions far enough North to live year-round.

It is important for anglers to be aware of a trout’s senses, primarily their sense of vision. Not only can these fish see in color, but their field of vision is very wide. This is because of the way light rays bend the water. This allows trout to see behind them. Since they are able to see colors, you need to select trout lures that match what your targets are currently eating. Otherwise, your bait will be ignored.

It does not take much to spook a trout. Their senses are so heightened that they can detect a human’s footsteps along the banks of a stream. They can perceive these vibrations to be an oncoming predator and become spooked. Because of this, as well as their wide range of vision, it is imperative that you remain very quiet and do not make sudden movements while trout fishing.

As previously mentioned, it is very important to know what trout are eating so you can select trout bait that resembles their current food. The phrase “match the hatch” means knowing the stage of the insects in your area, whether they are in the nymph stage or adults, for example, so that your bait mimics that. One way to determine this is by examining hatch charts. Many states’ DNR websites will update this information regularly so you can see what insects are hatching in your geographic location. Other ways you can find out what trout in your area are eating are to use a stomach pump or a seine. A stomach pump uses a suction tube to extract recently digested food from a trout’s digestive organs. A seine is a large net used to trap organisms from a stream’s bottom. By unearthing items like rocks from the bottom of a stream, you can stir up the water and allow insects to become caught in the seine. If you do not have these instruments in your trout gear collection, you can always examine weeds in the stream or overturn rocks along the banks to find out what the insects in your area are looking like.