Big Trout Fishing

They say when you first start fly fishing, just catching a fish on fly is the goal. After that, it’s all about how many fish you can catch. The next stage is then challenging yourself in the pursuit of big fish. If you dream about catching big brown trout or trophy rainbows, stop dreaming and make it a reality! Luck may see you land occasional big fish, doing it consistently takes skill. It is no coincidence that 90% of big fish are caught by 10% of anglers focused on pursuing them!

The first rule in pursuing big trout is your own mindset. You won’t catch as many fish and some days you will go blank, simply because targeting big fish, means ignoring the smaller trout. Secondly, decide what your target size is. Size is relative to waters and species you are fishing. Having decided this, you then need to regularly fish waters which produce fish of this size. It sounds obvious, however one of the greatest barriers to anglers not catching big trout, is fishing where their target fish does not exist. Turn the odds in your favour and select venues carefully.

Where to Find Big Trout

While obvious differences exist between river and lake, trout the world over have 3 key requirements, which are oxygen, food and cover (in some niche situations a 4th key requirement is migration driven ultimately by reproduction, we are not talking about targeting spawning fish). Locating areas in any body of water providing all 3 key requirements is a priority as these will be hot spots. Identifying “hot spots” or “prime lies” brings you another step along the path to catching truly trophy trout. Big trout while having the capacity to be dominant creatures, will do what they want, when they want, where they want. So it goes without saying, identifying and regularly fishing as many “hot spots” on your chosen water(s) as possible, significantly increases your probability of encountering your target fish.

• Examples of oxygen rich water are broken water, inlets, deep, shaded water, springs.
• Areas of rich feeding are marginal areas, drop offs in depth, weed & silt beds, current seams.
• Cover is provided by marginal vegetation, close proximity of deep water, broken water.

Techniques for Trophy Trout

Regardless of whether a trout is stocked or wild, is in a lake or river, fish which have little experience of anglers (for example where angling pressure is low) can be easy. Conversely, pressured fish are street wise and far more challenging to catch. This needs to be remembered.

Before deciding on techniques, we need to think of our approach to waters. Firstly is the water clear? If the answer is yes, then patiently stalking trophy trout in prime lies, is a consistently successful, exciting approach. Where stalking fish is not possible, a careful search strategy needs to be formulated, so you work a fly through identified areas to maximum effect.

Having decided our approach, the areas of technique, time of year and day, conditions, trout and prey activity all need to be thought through carefully. Their are no rules here and brown trout react differently to rainbow trout, each species behaves in differing ways from water to water. You simply have to put the time in here, experimenting, observing and learning. Having said that we can propose a rough guide.

Large trout will often show a preference for either a large, highly mobile fly such as streamers and big dries or a small fly for example nymphs & shrimp. As a very broad generalisation, spring and autumn are prime times for streamers, summer fishing is most productive with small nymphs during daytime and big dries around dusk, while winter time is a mix between large lures and small nymphs. Flies need to be worked on appropriate fly lines and retrieves, again only by putting in time and effort will you find what works best for specific waters. The best advice here is to fish your fly at the level of a big trout and keep it in the fish’s face as long as possible!

The above is a general guide, providing an informed foundation approach on which to build. If you would like help in formulating your own approach, please get in touch to discuss options appropriate for you.

Best fishes!

MFF