Trout - Habits Change With The Weather

[T Hood]

I had a fun couple of hours before work in Tilles Park (STL) as the trout were hitting between 10:30-11:30. I tried my usual 'go to' spinners and spoons with no luck. After going to a white Trout Magnet on a gold head, the hits kept coming!! Landed five in the next 45 minutes. Not bad, and, lots of fun.

I noticed that the stock trout tend to hit little jigs like the Trout Magnet as the weather gets colder. They also tend to lay off the spinners and spoons. A general question from a 'rookie": Are they adjusting to seeing so many spinners? Or, are they slowing down as the weather cools off?

Again, not sure on this one. Give me your take.

[Al Agnew]

Could be any of a number of factors. Very possible that the fish are getting used to the hardware. Could be that the water has gotten a little clearer as it gets colder and the hardware is a bit too flashy. Could be that the fish just want something smaller--seems like a lot of fish tend to go for smaller baits in the winter; maybe they find bigger stuff too difficult to digest with a slower metabolism. Could be that the fish have been in there long enough that they are starting to key on a particular type of food that the little jig imitates better.

If we anglers had all the answers all the time it wouldn't be any fun.

[kevthebassman]

If we anglers had all the answers all the time it wouldn't be any fun.

That's one way of putting it Al. I'd settle for all the answers, some of the time, or some of the answers, all of the time. Seems like my luckiest days are merely "some of the answers, some of the time" type days.

[Mitch f]

That's one way of putting it Al. I'd settle for all the answers, some of the time, or some of the answers, all of the time. Seems like my luckiest days are merely "some of the answers, some of the time" type days.

Look at Hoglaws post in "Personal Best", He describes "An epic hour of fishing"... so true!! Makes you wonder how many hours you have to put in before you get an hour like that. Every once in a while, everything comes together and you realize all the hard work you put in has finally paid off. But it sure doesn't happen very often and he will probably never forget that hour the rest of his life.

Kind of reminds me of duck hunting in the early nineties, I hunted for years with fairly good results. One day at Truman Lake, up the Grand River arm, we caught it just right. We were calling down groups of 200-300 ducks that were so high they couldn't possibly even hear the call. We were luckily in the migration path. We tied our boats together and had 8 guns blazing. Everyone limited out easily; we were calling in huge groups just to pick out one or two greenheads (educated a bunch of ducks that day!). These are the moments in your sporting life you can count on one hand!!

[ozark trout fisher]

My guess is that with the water temps dropping quickly through the 40s with this cold front, they probably don't want to chase something down that's moving as fast as a spinner or a spoon. Trout begin to get a bit less active when the water temp drops down to around 45, considerably more so when it gets to 40 and below, because their metabolism drops as the water temp does. They don't really need to chase down food, so you have to go to something slower moving.