Thursday Tips: Consider Trout Mouths

Trout eat some tiny stuff. I'll acknowledge that. In fact, trout eat a lot of minuscule bugs, and when they get keyed in on pinhead-sized midges, it can be tough to trick them with any offering that doesn't appear unreasonably small. That's why fly-fishermen drift No. 24 midges.

Those hooks are small because the flies that match the insects are small, though, and I think that trout fishermen tend to carry the "small" notion too far and become apprehensive about using jig, spoons, plugs or even flies that have fairly large hooks and that flash large profiles. The truth is that trout have pretty-good sized traps, and unless they are locked in on little stuff or are just being fussy, sometimes they'll go after a bigger offering than you might expect.

With bigger hooks, when the trout do get hooked, they tend to stay hooked. I've found that I enjoy a far higher landing percentage when I can get trout to eat a lure that has maybe a No. 2 hook on it than when my hook is a No. 10 or smaller. Don't get me wrong. I'll gladly go micro if that's what the trout want, but if I can get away with a large offering that I can cast farther and that will land me more fish, that's the direction I'm likely to go. Of course, bigger offerings also tend to increase your chances of tempting bigger trout, but maybe that's another story!