Spring Trout Fishing
With this spring trout fishing system you can take your limit of trout before the other anglers even get started.
A predominately deep section of trout stream, fed by warm water, such as exhaust water from a power plant or water emerging from beneath a deep dam, usually provides excellent opening-day fishing because cold-water trout tend to migrate and strike better there. A stretch of stream immediately above a lake containing trout is always a promising opening-day fishing choice since many early-season trout, especially rainbows and cutthroats, migrate from lakes up feeder streams to spawn and feed.
During your pre-season trip, select a specific point on a specific pool to begin fishing when the opening day gun goes off. The sharp fisherman who arrives early enough to claim a good casting position on a deep pool, and who sticks with that pool, using the right tactics, will often take his limit from it. Although covering a lot of water pays off when the crowds leave, it is not practical to move along a stream when it's necessary to fish through a long line of anglers.
Trout Fishing Pools
The pool you select should be so deep that you cannot see its bottom. Your odds for scoring will be even greater if the pool is rippled by heavy headwaters churning into it, if it lies in a shaded area and if it contains good trout cover, such as undercut banks, thick overhanging brush or submerged boulders. These factors cause trout to congregate in a pool and to strike better because they cannot see above-water activity or underwater lines and leaders.
In addition, the ideal trout pool to open the season on is one that can be effectively fished only from a single casting position. Such a pool is usually too deep to wade and too brushy to fish from the bank, except from that one point which you will homestead by arriving early enough to claim it. Of course, many trout streams, Passage Creek included, have few such ideal pools which can be fished from a single position exclusively-but many pools in most streams can be most effectively fished from only one position in spite of heavy competition. A typical example is a large and very deep pool with a rocky point jutting out into it. By claiming that point as your casting position you can fish the pool effectively and have ample casting room.
Most trout in an opening-day pool have never been hooked and have never seen a lure or bait-but remember that this naivety doesn't last long once the lures and baits start flying! Your best chance for action will be in that short period immediately following the season opening. The sharp angler will strike while the iron is hot and with tactics specifically tailored to that situation.
Flashy lures cast upstream and retrieved downstream close to deep bottoms will be seen by the most trout and will take the most fish in that hot period. Start off with the silver spinners or spoons. Keep casts short and keep the lure traveling through the deepest water in the pool. Retrieve the lure fairly fast. This will get those trout that are especially eager and will minimize snagging.
After about 30 minutes of frenzied fishing pressure, the trout in any opening-day pool usually begin to get lure shy and as the day wears on and they are exposed to more and more angling pressure, they become increasingly difficult to catch. But the sharp angler can use other tricks to take good trout, even then.
Trout Fishing Tactics
First, slow down your retrieve. Finicky, lure-shy trout refusing a fast-moving lure will often suck in a spinner or spoon which is barely moving downstream but bouncing along a deep bottom.
Second, change from flashy to drab lures. Start using those black, green and frog-finish spinners and spoons. Sometimes finicky, lure-shy trout can only be taken on a drab and very slow-moving lure.
Third, sweeten a spinner with a piece of worm. A No.1 black spinner with a half-inch piece of earthworm or night crawler trailing behind one of the treble hooks will give you some of your largest opening-day brook trout and some good rainbows.
If the foregoing tricks fail, try an old standby: Trail a small piece of worm on a No. 12 hook tied on 12 inches of leader material behind a spinner. After an opening-day pool has been heavily fished for a considerable period of time, this combination sometimes works when no other lure or lure-bait combination will!
