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Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 2:24 pm
by Sebb
Calling all trout masters or anyone.

Trout rivers are closing soon for them to spawn and all (in Victoria it's the Queens birthday weekend in June), often a lot of people are out there trying to get the big spawning trouts with various methods.
Trout can be picky at times but math the hatch often works.

Here's my usual by the seasons and I think I need to exchange ideas and try new things ;-) :

Spring - big searching fly like woolly bugger or big dry fly with nymph, or rooster tail lure in rainbow/brown colour (bigger size for lake, smaller for smaller rivers)
Summer - caddis dry fly or nymphing, small hardbody lure around 30mm in natural colour in rivers, usually I don't fish lake trout in summer
Autumn - Mayfly dry with nymph/globug, big hardbody like double clutch or rapalas around 70mm, in brown/rainbow or pink/orange colour. As they are getting ready to spawn and can be aggressively territorial.
Winter (lake only) - spoon, like pegron, or tassie devil in pink. looking for smelting fish.


What are your go lures/flies for them?
I'm planning to take a day off of work next week and week after, potentially to Goulburn river. :water:

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 3:41 pm
by Stumpjumper
I don't fly fish but my lures for any season on rivers are an assortment of Blue Fox spinners, and Rapalas in Brown/Rainbow colours but the Spotted Dog spawning colour is my favourite in Autumn. On the big lakes I mostly troll with the biggest size Tassie Devils rigged with single hook, with the Pink Panther being my favourite colour but I mix it up with outrageously bright and natural colours if the Pink Panther isn't working.

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 7:10 pm
by dazz999
i use to have a caravan at thorton about 20yrs ago and fished the goulburn river every weekend allways done well with the red and black woolly bugger ,nymph,s in black,brown and green tyed with proper seal,s fur yep i know cant buy it now .The other one,s i was using would have to check my fly fishing vest in the back room .weapon on choice loomis 10ft fly rod 6wt

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 7:21 pm
by rb85
When I used to fly fish for trout I loved using royal wullf's, royal humpy's and red tag's all dry fly fishing also fished nymphs as well. Caught a nice brown on a rapala xrap the other day.

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 8:41 pm
by Redhunter
I'm not much of a fly fisho, but often use them in conjunction with lures when on the troll, flatlining and downrigging. I'd go as far as to say that I've had just as many strikes on the flies, so it is worth doing.

Lure choice is an interesting topic. There are two types of strikes. An aggressive strike, and a feeding strike.
An aggressive strike can come from a territorial fish at any time of year that simply hits something because it is in "their" space, or during spawning time specifically in lakes/impoundments when the fish get frustrated because they are unable to spawn. This is why bright colours such as reds and pinks work, because they certainly don't represent anything natural thats for sure.
A feeding strike comes from using lures representing what the fish are feeding on. Size, colour, shape, action, rattles, are all contributing factors. The age old saying of "match the hatch" is exactly what it comes down to, and to make it even more fun, what works today may not necessarily work tomorrow, as they may be feeding on something else completely.

Personally I don't feel that there is any diehard rule of what lure works when. There are so many variables. An angler will always carry an assortment of types and colours, chopping and changing until they find something productive.

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 10:38 pm
by happyfriggincamper
Was thinking along the lines of redhunter, there are some tweaks yoh can do across the seasons but trout are such you can keep it pretty basic and have some gear to cover all seasons pretty comfortably.

So my lure gotos are- gold vibrax spinner #2 or #3, any 7-8cm floating shallow diving hard body that have any trout or similar colours pattern, not that confident on SPs but id probably say berkley black/gold ttail and strike tiger 1" nymph black gold. Tweaks id try throughout the season would be brighter spawning colours in prespawning and upping the hard body size to something 10-12cm pre/post spawning season to get more aggression strikes.

Personally i only match the hatch when its blatently obvious massive emerging of a particular insect otherwise i use a pretty generic dry/dropper set up that ive found pretty consistent. #10-12 black klinkhammer and a #16 gold bead black nymph with some flash on the back or beaded hares ear with the flash.

The klinkhammer is pretty versatile looking to any emerging type insect and i like how it sits in the water. Its got a nice parachute to keep ypur eye on + a collar when soaked in floatant keeps the parachute high, then the lower half sits butt heavy in the water and often gets a lot of sub-surface sips as the take. Nymph is pretty generic as well, mimics a lot but nothing in particular and has a little flash for occasional attention.

Tweaks id try would be in summer maybe id throw a grasshopper type dry + maybe autumn winter i'd do a bigger meatier dark grey dry cos i think there are a few species of bigger moths that come out around that time of year.

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 11:21 am
by meppstas
As you can see in the photos (drying them out after taking a dive in the river last season :oops: ) I carry a large variety of lures when trout fishing.
Brown trout can be on or off most times of the season especially if the water is below 6 degrees or above 21 degrees.. Early season the gold. silver & fluro colours work well on the trout, those colours are what stimulate the trout into taking them. Warmer water during Summer months the darker colours work well. Autumn once the rains arrive the trout become more aggressive as the season goes on and they'll take just about anything you throw at them. Rainbow trout are the more aggressive of the two species and they will take what ever lure I use, it's not all that often they haven't taken one I've used when chasing trout. I always carry a large variety of lures with me..
cheers
Adrian
9 Drying out the lures & lure boxes. (Medium).JPG
Drying out my fishing vest tackle etc..
9 Drying out the lures. (Medium).JPG
Spinners & hard body lures drying out
Lure box  98 (Medium).JPG
Lures 1
Lures 01 (Medium).JPG
lures 2
Lures 02 (Medium).JPG
lures 3
Lures 03 (Medium).JPG
lures 4

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 1:59 pm
by Stumpjumper
HeHe…….just about stock a tackleshop Meppsta. :thumbsup:

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 6:44 pm
by Truedogz
Hi Seb

Some of the other posts have highlighted seasonal changes in lure selection. What also needs to be considered is the type of water, eg small stream, larger rivers and lakes. There are, in particular, some flies well suited to certain waters, eg willow grubs for the Goulburn.

In terms of dry flies my standards for small streams are red tags, duns and stimulators. I use white moths often on dusk in streams and bigger rivers and keep an ant pattern, a termite pattern and a grasshopper fly for hatches on streams and rivers. Wet flies I use in rivers and larger streams are bead head nymphs and after dark in rivers I have worked some larger flies on the surface like muddler minnows, cricket patterns and matuka patterns or a Craigs nightime/Taihape tickler below the surface. In lakes I have mainly used wet flies like beadhead nymphs and matukas. At times Taihape ticklers have worked well in Eildon pondage on dusk for example.

In streams the small spinners like celtas/blue fox etc are standard but in hard fished waters the trout get shy of them. The Strike Tiger 1" nymphs are great and perform better than spinners in areas with a lot of angler traffic. The other standard for streams are the small plastic minnows others have mentioned. All of these lures also work in the bigger rivers but I would add some wobblers, either the Wonder style or the Pegron patterns. After dark floating soft plastics can be deadly. I still use the old Floppy lures but the rubber frogs used for boofing cod work just as well on big trout, bass etc.

Best Wishes

Truedogz

Re: Trout lures/flies discussion

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 3:03 pm
by April Fool
Redhunter wrote:
Fri May 17, 2019 8:41 pm
……………………………………………………………………………………..
An aggressive strike can come from a territorial fish at any time of year that simply hits something because it is in "their" space, or during spawning time specifically in lakes/impoundments when the fish get frustrated because they are unable to spawn. This is why bright colours such as reds and pinks work, because they certainly don't represent anything natural thats for sure.
........................................
Do you think it is possible the bright colors may represent the spawning colors of trout and that may then trigger the agression strike you are talking about. Maybe that is what you are saying anyway. I also like using orange when fishing around spawning time as me thinks the fishies may mistake it for roe...or for one of these little critters, the Barred galaxias.
barred galaxias.jpg
barred galaxias.jpg (11.4 KiB) Viewed 3003 times
Been a while since I seriously targeted trout on lures but the last time I did...I had great results with the following Rapala color called 'bleak'!
f09alb.jpg
cheers
Team Bender
That is all I got!!!!