A late Fall Brown trout in southeast idaho on the snake river

Fishing Techniques

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This post was last updated on February 26th, 2015 at 03:59 am

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Modern Fishing Methods for the Brown Trout

There are a variety of ways to fish for the brown trout. 

Fly Fishing

The most popular way to hook  the Brown trout is fly fishing. The brown trout is a wary and difficult fish to catch.
This is very evident in areas where there is heavy fishing pressure.

A late Fall Brown trout in southeast idaho on the snake river
A Late fall Brown trout. This is on the South fork of the snake in Idaho. The south fork is a great place to hook big Brown trout. They tend to get pretty easy to catch in the fall after most of the fisherman have left for the season.

You have to be careful to not slap the water when you are presenting your fly to the fish. If the fish become aware that they are being casted at, they will cease feeding and sometimes leave the area for a while. In order to provoke a fish to strike you will need to offer it a very natural looking fly, with a natural drifting presentation. If the fish in the area are all eating grasshoppers, your odds of catching a mature brown on a small parachute Adams fly will be less likely. Like the old saying goes “match the hatch” and you will catch more fish.  These trout tend to lock in on a certain size and color of a food item. Once they are keyed in on a particular insect, they tend target flies that look like what they are seeing naturally.

Spinners and Crankbaits:

Casting inline spinners and other trout lures is a very effective way to hook a lot of fish. When fishing in this manner it is best to work your way upstream. By walking upstream you are accomplishing a couple of things.

  1. You will not stir up material on the bottom of the river and alert the trout to your presence.
  2. Your lure will be moving with the current as you reel it back towards yourself. This is beneficial because the fish are usually always facing upstream. So when your lure gets eaten by the fish it will be facing away from you. This will bury the hook into the side of the fishes mouth easily.

Live Bait

Live bait fishing for browns is very common. The most frequently used baits include leaf worms, nightcrawlers and salted minnows. The major downside of using any type of live bait is the increased casualty rate of the fish. If a trout hits a worm on a hook and you are quick enough to set the hook, it will likely swallow it whole. The safe removal of a swallowed hook is very unlikely, and attempting to do so will probably result in a dead trout.

Using live bait for trout is not recommended, but if you must, salted minnows are probably the safest method for the fish. The most common way to fish these is just like casting a lure. Hook the head of the minnow with a size 6-8 hook, a barrel swivel (the minnow will spin and twist your line otherwise) with a few split shot about 8 inches ahead of the minnow. Cast it out and retrieve it slowly. You will easily catch fish using this method and the best part is, the aggressive strike of the fish will trigger an instant hook set; thus not allowing the trout to get hooked inside of the throat.