What You Need To Know About Trout Fishing

Fishing is one of America's favorite past times. With that said one of the best types of fish to target and catch is trout. Trout fish can commonly be found in cool, clear streams and lakes throughout North America. They can be found naturally in northern Asia and Europe. Most trout can be exclusively found in freshwater, but many, such as the steelhead spend their adult life in the ocean and then they return to the streams where they were hatched to spawn. This is called anadromous reproduction and is also seen in salmon. Brook trout, brown trout, cutthroat trout, bull trout, and Arctic char also have populations which run to salt water also.

There are many different types of trout, and even more populations that are isolated from each other and morphologically different. However, many of these distinct populations show no significant genetic differences besides color and pattern. The same species of trout that live in different environments can have substantially different colors and patterns and may be named in a different way. The cutthroat trout, for example, has 14 recognized subspecies (depending on your sources), such as the Lahontan cutthroat trout, the Bonneville cutthroat trout, Colorado River cutthroat trout, Yellowstone cutthroat trout to name a few. Alternatively, occasionally the difference in colors and patterns results in the same species being called by very different names. The brook trout along with the aurora trout all have physical features and colors that differentiate them to differ but, genetic analysis shows that they are one species, Salvelinus fontinalis.

The Trout typically, use the colors and patterns for camouflage based on the surroundings in which they live. These colors and patterns will chang as the fish move to different habitats. Trout that is in, or has just recently returned from the sea, can look very silvery while the same "genetic" fish living in a small stream or lake could have noticable greenish speckles with much more coloration.

Trout have fins which are fully without spines, and all of them have a little adipose (fatty) fin along the back, near their tail. They're actually somewhat bony fish, however the flesh is usually considered good eat and to the taste. Because of their popularity within the fishing community, trout in many cases are raised on fish farms also referred to as hatcheries and are then relocated into heavily fished waters. Replenishing the water's supply of trout is part of an attempt to reduce the results of over fishing. Many different fishing strategies are available for trout fishing such as spin fishing and fly fishing. Though fly fishing has now been extended to target and catch other fish species, it had been a unique method developed mainly for catching trout. Part of the fun of trout fishing and the thing that has made it quite popular is that trout provides the fisherman with a good fight when caught with a hook and line.

Depending on the body of water that you are fishing in you will find different trout. The bait that is used to catch trout fish can be different depending on the species of trout and the size of the trout. Trout commonly go after soft bodied aquatic invertebrates, like Diptera, mayfly, caddis fly, and stonefly which could make using a worm or nghtcrawler a very good bait. Larger specimens of trout regularly feed on other smaller fish like minnows. Using a spinner might be appropriate in this situation given that spinners are made to resemble the movement of smaller fish.

By: Michael Payton

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Michael Payton is a Trout Fishing enthusiast and author. For more great information on trout fishing, visit www.secretstotroutfishing.com