When I was a kid, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a professional bass fisherman. On Saturday mornings while the others were watching cartoons, I would wake up, pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms, and turn on ESPN to watch the bass tournaments. It was an obsession, to the point where I had posters of Kevin VanDam on my bedroom wall and a couple Jimmy Houston action figures on my toy shelf (mint, still in the box).
I also grew up in the Northeast, which meant that I didn’t have a lot of bass lakes around (let alone a bass boat) where I could emulate my heroes. But I did have a bunch of trout streams. So, armed with a couple of baitcasting rods and a tackle box full of soft plastics, spinnerbaits, and crankbaits, I would go out and make a lip-ripping assault on the local rivers, where I’d catch trout … some really big trout.
It was during those early days of catching monster trout on bass gear that I had an epiphany. As much as we emphasize delicate presentations and stealthy equipment for trout, the truth is you can catch some of the biggest trout of your life using techniques and lures carried over from the bass fishing world.
Why It Works
Photo by Kubie Brown
Trout have traditionally been thought of as these finicky little creatures that flat out refuse to strike anything that doesn’t fit with their delicate sensitivities. A lot of anglers believe the fish need to be finessed and wooed into biting a perfectly matched (and sometimes tiny) fly. Which is true a lot of the time. But trout will also change their habits once they get truly big.
Whether you’re talking about brown trout, rainbows, or cutthroats, the fact is once a trout reaches a certain size (say 20 inches or so), eating hundreds of tiny insects isn’t always worth the effort. In the perpetual treadmill of a river’s current, those big fish are spending almost as much energy seeking insects out as they gain from eating them. So, they’ll often change their diet to better suit their caloric needs and go from insectivores to voracious meat-eating predators. In short, they’ll act more like bass.
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Just like the biggest, bucket-headed largemouth, a large trout will eat all sorts of prey. This includes small baitfish, crayfish, frogs, mice, and other, smaller trout. Almost anything that swims in the river that a large hungry trout can cram in their mouths becomes fair game, which is why certain bass fishing techniques work so well on them.
Flip and Pitch the Banks
In the early season, rivers become swollen with rain and snowmelt and trout get pushed up tight against the bank. If you treat the overhanging brush, undercut banks, and log jams along the river like the boat docks, brush piles, and flooded timber on your average bass lake, you can catch a lot of really big trout. Especially if you’re adept at flipping and pitching with soft plastics.
Photo by Kubie Brown
Flipping and pitching were developed as short, accurate underhand casting methods for getting big baits close to cover. You can do it with just your rod on a short line (flipping) or by taking the lure in your off hand to bend the rod tip before the cast to add a bit of spring and distance (pitching). Just like your short game in golf, flipping and pitching requires a bit of practice to master, but once you do, you’ll be able to knock a flea off a bird dog’s butt with a tube jig.
Big trout holding tight to cover are reluctant to come out to feed, so you need a significant offering to tempt them. A large soft-plastic bait like the Zoom Fluke or creature bait like Brush Hog on a Texas rig, a chunky tube jig like the Magnum Elite, or even a simple wacky-rigged plastic worm, are often just what the doctor ordered to get these fish to come out and play. Flip your baits along the bank, beneath overhanging brush, and in any gaps between large boulders or logs, dropping the lures as close to cover as you can. Then as the bait sinks, give the rod a couple of jigs and hang on, because it usually won’t take long for your bait to be slammed by a marauding trout.
As with bass fishing, you’re going to want to flip and pitch for trout with heavy gear. Strikes come hard and fast, and it doesn’t take much for a big trout to break off in heavy current. You’ll want to use a fairly stiff medium to heavy action rod rigged with 20- to 30-pound test to ensure you can keep the fish out and away from cover.
Buzz the Surface
Buzz baits have long been a favorite among bass anglers who love seeing big fish boil just beneath the surface. However, not many folks realize that these loud and flashy lures can also be incredibly effective for big trout, especially if you fish them on warm summer evenings. During hot bright days, large predatory trout will usually hole up in deep water and wait to feed until the sun goes down. Then, like ravenous aquatic vampires, they’ll leave their dark haunts to come out and hunt.
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The loud and gaudy flash of small buzz baits like the Mini Pro Buzz are the perfect lure for these situations. Cast them along the edges of sharp drop-offs and deep holes, targeting the fastest water possible. These are ideal spots for predatory trout to lurk as they can easily hold in the deeper water, waiting to smash any fast moving prey item that cruises by in the faster current.
You can also snag some big trout in slower water using topwater bass lures. Lures like the Bullet Pop, the Jitterbug, and the classic Torpedo can bring some explosive strikes from trout, especially when you rip and pop them through slow pools and back eddies in the middle and along the edges of bigger rivers.
Throw Jerkbaits, Swimbaits, and Crankbaits During the Fall
During the fall when the water temperatures start to drop, trophy-sized trout really put on the feed bag. In low cold water, big trout will act like sharks that smell blood in the water, chasing baitfish of all shapes and sizes. This is a great time to throw big baitfish imitating lures such as jerkbaits, swimbaits, and crankbaits.
Photo by Kubie Brown
Jerkbaits like the Husky Jerk and the X-Rap are fantastic for fishing near the tailouts of fast moving pools, where trout gather to pick off baitfish that have been swept up by the current. To fish them, cast your jerkbait up and across the pool so that they land in the main current. Then retrieve them back with a lot of frantic jerks and pauses, imitating a poor baitfish that’s lost and confused in the current. A lot of times, those big fall trout won’t be able to resist.
Crankbaits and swimbaits are great for covering a lot of water. You can cast them across deep pools and holes in the middle of the river, or you can splash them down and crank and twitch them through pockets and drop offs along the bank. In deeper water, from 10 to 15 feet, crankbaits like the Gravel Dog are ideal. Their quick moving and heavily wobbling action are perfect for calling big trout up from deep water.
Swimbaits like the Real Image and the Chad Shad are best for shallower water from 3 to 6 feet deep. You can cast and crank them through long runs, twitch and stall them through slow pools, and even drift them through faster currents. All of which are almost guaranteed to draw out a big trout looking for a big meal.
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Taking It Back
It’s funny the way life works sometimes. Despite my childhood bass fishing dreams, I never became a pro bass angler. Instead, I became a fly fishing guide on the wild rivers in Montana. I love the job and consider it a pleasure to watch trout slowly rise up and sip drifting insects from the surface of the water. However, on occasion I still feel the need to break away from the clandestine nature of dry flies and nymphs and I’ll go out to try and catch some lunkers. So, I’ll grab my bass gear out of the closet and head down to the river where I can fish like a kid again.
