This post was last updated on January 26th, 2015 at 08:48 pm

The Stomach Pump Will Help You Catch More Trout On Tough Days of Flyfishing

The stomach pump for trout is essentially a small turkey baster. You insert it into the trout’s mouth and into its stomach. The contents that you remove will help you catch more fish. You can easily determine what the trout are actively feeding on and base your fly choices upon what you find. Some of the best trout fishing tips,  can only be given by the the trout themselves.

Looking at the results of a stomach pumping of a small trout in Idaho, you can determine that the best fly to tie on would be a small green colored nymph. The brown trout who was our participant in this stomach pumping exercise, has been eating only a particular size and mainly the same colored nymphs.

When trout are scanning the water for food floating down to them, they tend to become locked in a a particular food. The trout who’s stomach was pumped here, would be unlikely to take a dark brown or black nymph that floated right in front of his face, it simply is not looking for food that color. In order for the trout to be able to identify potential food, they tend to look only for one color or size item; this in my opinion allows them to more easily ID food that they know they want. If you had to eat food that was floating by at several miles per hour, you would also likely use a similar technique.

Tips to Using the Trout Stomach Pump

• Fill the pump with water before attempting to remove the contents of the trouts stomach
• Don’t squeeze the bulb hard, you could potentially harm the trout, you only need to do a couple very light squeezes for this to work
• Be careful to closely examine your findings, and look for similarities in the insects removed.