Posts Tagged ‘Trout’

I spend a lot of my free time camping and fishing, but, when I can’t get out and camp or fish, I spend my time searching for great tips that I can bring to you. What I’ve discovered is that there are a on of great tips and information available about how to catch fish, but very little of this information makes any sense, even to me! Too often, really great sites like Berkley-Fishing.com (yes, that is Berkley, as in PowerBait) have great tips, but they aren’t explained enough and are far too technical.

Here’s a great tip I found on Berkley-Fishing.com called Shorecasting For Lake and Brown Trout, but it has a lot of terms and techniques in it that I’m not sure you’d recognize. So, I’ve added in some definitions and explanations (in normal English, not the techno-babble that tournament fishers use) so I can share this great tip with you. You might also need this photo to make sense of some of the terms!

On larger lakes, trout move shallow where shore casters can target them with spoons and swim baits.

This means that you will cast out and then reel in, pulling the lure towards the shore as you reel in. You should be reeling in fast enough to keep the lure off the bottom. This is a great technique if you:

1. can cast easily and with any accuracy
2. are fishing a shoreline that is relatively weed and rock free
3. are good at getting your line unhooked from snags.

If you’re NOT good at getting unhooked, you’ll need my three part series on the right (and easy) way to get unstuck! If you missed it, it was published on June 10, 2010.

Good areas to fish include mouths of tributary rivers, points, and other access areas like piers. Start by targeting areas closer to shore earlier in the morning and progressively cast to deeper water later in the day to find fish.

You’re looking for areas where you can easily fish the shallows of the lake but can also cast into deeper water later in the day as the trout move to deeper water when the shallow water gets warmer.

Cast spoons in the 1/4- to 1-ounce sizes and 5- 6-inch swim baits, or use thumper-style soft baits on 1/2 to 1-ounce jig heads.

A spoon is a cupped metal lure that swims through water like a wounded baitfish. These can be unpainted or painted metal and have a treble hook attached. When I troll for trout, I use a spoon lure called a flatfish.

Swim baits are artificial lures that resemble a swimming minnow when they are pulled through the water. Mostly these are hard wood or plastic, and are jointed so they move their “tail” back and forth in the water as you reel in, i.e. they “swim.”

Soft bait are those jiggly rubber worms that are also used for bass. They come in a variety of colors and sizes and (new and without hooks) are a hit with kids to play with in camp. If your soft bait lure tears, you can heat a straightened paperclip (on the camp stove) and gently melt the edges of the plastic back together by dragging the heated clip through the tear and pressing the edges back together. (Use pliers to grasp the clip and gloves to protect your hands!)

Jig heads are a small, hard plastic lure with a single barbed hook attached. There are different types, but basically think a round ball with a painted eye on it and a hook sticking out. There are round head, axe head, bean heads and more.

Experiment with retrieve speed and color. Good color patterns to start with are those that mimic natural baitfish.

This means that you’re going to test how fast to reel in and what color of lure you’re using. This is where the science of fishing ends and the experimentation begins- keep trying different combinations until you find the one that catches trout.

If you want to catch trout, and if casting and reeling in aren’t really your thing, then you’ll want to check out my Sure-Fire, Trout-Catching Set-Up for a great way to bottom fish for trout. Did you miss my Sure-Fire, Trout-Catching Set-Up? It was published on SetYourHook.com on May 6, 2010.

Readers Weigh In:

• What are your favorite trout fishing techniques?
• Do you have a favorite lure or bait that you use?
• Do you prefer to use lures (cast & reel method) or to bottom fish?

Have you ever thought about making your own fishing bait? Personally, I’ve never tried it, but my friend Bob swears by it. He has a super-secret recipe that he’s forbidden me to share! (But he gave a bit to The Queen Mother for Christmas so she’ll try it out in June when she and ESP Boss go on vacation!)

This week, I’ll be sharing with you five “recipes” for making your own fishing bait. In a few weeks, when the EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family heads to Ashurst Lake to do some fishing, we’ll test all 5 baits head-to-head against a store-bought bait and I’ll bring you the results.

Before using these, or any homemade baits, be sure to check with your local fishing regulations to make sure that homemade baits are permitted. You also need to make sure there are no ingredients on a do-not-use list.

An important thing to consider when making your own bait is to keep track of your “recipe”. You don’t want to catch your limit of fish and then realize you’re not exactly sure what was in your bait!

I recommend that you store your baits in the refrigerator until ready to take to the lake. All baits seem to work better when they are warm (and smelly) but I don’t recommend storing the baits in the garage. The neighbors might complain!

In the photo below, my grandma (ESP Boss’ mother) caught this ENORMOUS catfish using store-bought bait. I can’t wait to see what I can catch using these recipes!

Fancy Catfish Bait

Ingredients

• 1 can Fancy Feast Cat food
• Flour

In a large bowl, pour the entire contents of the cat food can, including juice. Start adding flour slowly, kneading it by hand until it is dry enough to not stick to your hand, but damp enough to hold its shape. Form into balls just big enough to cover a treble hook. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Any-Fish Doughballs

Ingredients

• White bread
• Juice from a can of tuna fish (packed in water, not oil)
• Shredded cheese
• Garlic powder

Mix the juice, garlic powder, and shredded cheese into bread and form into balls.

(Across the board, all the people that swear by doughballs say that the stinkier they are the better!)

Gourmet Bait

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup raisins
• Parmesan cheese
• Brown sugar
• Corn syrup
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. garlic powder

Run the raisins and parmesan cheese through a food processor to make a paste. Heat apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, brown sugar and corn syrup over a low flame until hot but not boiling. Cool the mixture and then add it to the raisin paste. With your fingers, form into balls. This can then be thickened using either flour or corn meal till the desired thickness is achieved.

There are many recipes for catfish bait. You can make catfish bait; by following this recipe for catfish bait. You need some white flour, 3 ounces of water, 2 ounces of b.b.q. sauce and 2 ounces of garlic. All this has to be mixed to which required amounts of flour is added to get the desired thickness. Try this bait and you will find that it makes one of the best bait for catfish!

Another type of homemade catfish bait can be made using tuna, cheddar or limburger cheese, garlic powder, flour and vegetable oil. First you have to mush half of the tuna and cheese in a large bowl and then add oil till the required consistency arrives. Add a tablespoon of flour to every one-fourth cup of tuna and cheese and six shakes of garlic powder to a cup of tuna and cheese. You then freeze this catfish bait to be used when going fishing.

Cheesy Trout Bait

Ingredients

• Velveeta cheese (full block)
• 1 Tbs. anise oil
• 1 Tbs. garlic powder
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup corn meal
• Red food coloring (optional)

Place the cheese in a microwave safe bowl and heat it until it is melted. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients and the anise oil. Slowly stir dry ingredients into melted cheese, adding water as needed, until the mixture becomes a heavy dough.

Add red food coloring (optional) a drop at a time until the desired shade is achieved.

Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a rapid boil. While waiting for the water to boil, pinch off enough of the dough to form a small ball and roll it until it forms a ball. Form all of the dough into balls. Drop in a few dough balls into the water at a time. Cook the balls in the boiling water for 1-2 minutes and then place on paper towels to dry off the excess water.

Crunchy Bait

Ingredients

• Sweetened corn flake cereal (like Frosted Flakes)
• 1 can dog food
• 1 can cream of corn
• Garlic salt

In a large zippered bag, lightly crush the sweetened corn flakes. In a separate bowl mix the dog food, cream of corn and garlic salt. Add the crushed cereal until the mixture forms a heavy dough. Form into balls.

Readers weigh in:

What are your favorite homemade baits? Do you have any sure-fire ingredients? What is the best bait you’ve ever used and what did you catch with it?

ESP Boss discovered this set up for our trout tackle about nine years ago and since then we’ve had excellent trout catching success.

• Size 12 or 14 treble snelled hooks (the ones with line attached are easier to use and faster to change out when the fishing is hot)
• 1/8 oz egg weights
• 4 lbs test fishing line
• Swivel
• Berkley® Power Bait

On your fishing line, thread one or two egg weights. These will slip up and down the line. Then attach the swivel. Attach a treble hook line to the swivel. Cover the hook with the Power Bait, only using enough to completely cover the hook, about the size of an olive.

(The “fishing line” in the photo is actually sewing thread so you can see how the line is set up.)

I personally use two egg weights with my Eagle Claw fishing pole. I have a very flexible action and with just one weight, my casts barely clear the weeds on shore.

Under water, the weights go to the bottom, and the Power Bait floats above the rocks and weeds, making sure the trout can find it. I prefer the slip sinker method rather than pinching on split shot because I think the slip sinkers are more adaptable to the underwater conditions. If you pinch a split shot at 15 inches above the swivel, that’s where it is, with no flexibility.

I’m addicted to using Yellow Power Bait, not having much success on other colors. It’s a good idea to have at least a few jars of different colors in your tackle box, just in case. The other colors I use are: white, chartreuse, pink, and anything with sparkles.

If you prefer worms, salmon eggs, corn or other bait, they’ll all work with this set up, but floating bait works the best.

Readers Weigh In:

What tips do you have for catching trout? Is there a way to set up your tackle that just seems to work no matter what?

You can post comments on the blog or visit our Fishing Tips Forum.