Trout are largely overlooked in many places during ice season. They get stocked in a lot of relatively small lakes, which means easy access that doesn’t require extensive equipment and fish that are easier to locate than on major lakes. It doesn’t hurt that they strike with reckless abandon and put up a good fight.
If you’re not sure where to target trout during the winter, check out your state fisheries department website. Good prospects might be closer than you realize. While you’re there, take a good look at the regulations. Lakes stocked with trout sometimes fall under extra restrictions, and in many states a special trout stamp is required in addition to a regular fishing license.
Those details acknowledged, let’s jump into a practical set of tips that will help you catch more trout this winter. Tips, by the way, are mostly geared toward rainbow trout, but they apply pretty well to any trout other than lake trout or splake, which simply don’t act like most of their kinfish.
1. Play the Breaks
Trout commonly cruise breaklines like cars on the interstate, so knowing a lake’s main contours can make a major difference. Find a topo map, whether electronic or paper, if possible. If no decent map exists, look at Google Earth, tracking back to the open water season, and see whether the overhead view allows you to estimate the vicinity of the first main break out from the shore. Whether just above it, below it or right on it, some trout will use that break most of the winter. –Continue reading this article at this LINK….
—–
Join ODU Magazine on Facebook here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter fishing site here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter hunting site here at this LINK…..
.