Trout Fishing with Live Bait

When it comes to trout fishing, whether you are fishing for brook, rainbow, cutthroat, or even brown trout, one of the best baits that can be employed is live bait. Trout fishing with live bait can be very enjoyable and productive, especially if a few simple strategies are adhered to. In this article I will outline and discuss 3 simple strategies that will make your trout fishing much more enjoyable and most of all more productive.

I have been fishing for trout with live bait for more than two decades and know that you will catch more trout using these simple rules/strategies the next time that you go trout fishing with live bait. It’s also important to point out that all of these ideas are born from “real world” fishing experience and don’t come from someone who just fishes for trout casually. These tips and strategies work and I know that because I personally abide by and use them all every time that I head out onto the water to go in search of trout.

With that being said, let’s get down to business, what do you say?

1. Free Your Hands Of Human Scents – This might sound strange, but it’s nonetheless true. Trout have sensitive “noses” and can easily detect human scents of your live bait. If they do, trout are much less apt to bite your offering. This is especially true with larger, more experienced trout and is why you want to make sure that your hands are free of any human scents before handling your live bait. An easy way to accomplish this task is to rub a handful of grass in between your hands before handling your bait. This will effectively eliminate any human scents that might be present on your hands and would therefore transfer to your bait.
2. Be Efficient – When you are trout fishing with bait there is a good chance that you will be wading in the water that you are fishing. This makes accessing your bait for baiting up and/or re-baiting difficult, so you want to have efficient ways of carrying your live bait with you on the water. One of the easiest to find and most effective live baits that can be used for trout fishing are live worms and the perfect way to carry your live worms on the water is a bait bag. The point is that no matter what type of live bait that you chose to use, find an efficient way to carry and access your trout bait when you are on the water. This saves valuable “fishing” time that is spent baiting up and re-baiting.
3. Use Small Fishing Hooks – However you choose to rig your live bait when you are trout fishing, make sure that you use small fishing hooks. For example when you are using salmon egg, bait holder, or gang hook style fishing hooks when fishing for trout size 8 or10 fishing hooks are perfect. When using treble hooks stick with size 12 or even 18. The point is that you want your hooks to be as “invisible” as possible to the trout you are attempting to catch, so that the focus of the offering is the bait itself and not the hook (s).

Follow these simple tips and rules the next time that you head out fishing for trout with live bait and you will experience more success. These tips have been working for me for more than twenty years and I know they will do the same for you.