Trout advice for first timer

[dalesnow]

Hi All,

I'm new to the board and new to trout fishing.  I have experience bass and pickeral fishing, I'm from Mass and usually fish shallow, warmer ponds.

I want to use tip ups for trout and I'm looking for some advice/general guide lines for bait, hook size and depth.  Any advice is appreciated.  Thanks.

[dalesnow]

Some info about the lake that might be helpful....

Fishes: Brook trout, splake, landlocked salmon, rainbow smelt.

Max depth is 52 feet

[trout chaser]

 I WOULD USE MINNOWS,  SMALL,  1 FOOT BELOW THE ICE, SMAL RED TROUT HOOK  SIZE 8  MAYBE SMALLER,ALSO  TROUT WORMS   COUPLE FEET BELOW THE ICE,  LOOK FOR SANDY TO  GRAVELY  BOTTOM,.  GOOD LUCK  AND TIGHT  LINES

[james]

try fishing a smelt a couple of feet under the ice. as far as your tip up run 6 feet of 6lb fluorocarbon leader to a size 8 snelled hook.  good luck


                                                                           james

[dalesnow]

How many FOW would you recommend I set the tip ups in?  I think its a 5 line lake.  Should I try different intervals?

Great advice so far, thanks!

[trout chaser]

2 TO 8 FEET

[james]

Most people fish for brookies in shallow water, but here in NH i fish a small lake and do well fishing just under the ice,in over 20 feet of water for, rainbows,brookies,and salmon.

[dalesnow]

I WOULD USE MINNOWS,  SMALL,  1 FOOT BELOW THE ICE, SMAL RED TROUT HOOK  SIZE 8  MAYBE SMALLER,ALSO  TROUT WORMS   COUPLE FEET BELOW THE ICE,  LOOK FOR SANDY TO  GRAVELY  BOTTOM,.  GOOD LUCK  AND TIGHT  LINES

As for the minnows, i usually use shiners but i've heard they aren't the greatest for trout.. any ideas on what would work?

[beermilk]

I went rainbow fishing couple days ago a friend of mine told me use SHRIMP as bait was he ever right we were outfishing everyone eles 5-1  we were there 3 hours got 15 fish and lost just as many.

I will never dobut the power of shrimp for trout again lol

[G-TOWNBOWSLAYER]

Fish splake in about 3 to 12 fow with greys there a little big but that way the perch wont keep robbing you. Brook Trout I would fish by any inlets of any creeks with wigglers.

[dabluz]

Here in my region, brook trout are as common as perch in other regions.  In fact, there are no perch, sunfish, crappie or bass in my region.

For brook trout, I use 4 lb mono and small hooks.  Size 8 Gamakatsu Octopus hooks are my favourite.

For brook trout, location is an important factor.  I like to fish close to rock faces that are exposed to the sun during the day.  These rock faces transmit warmth to the adjacent water and this activates insects that live in the water adjacent to the rock face.  Points, inlets....even the mouths of tiny streams are good and narrow passes between main bodies of water are great too.  If there is an island on the lake, that is surely one of the places I will visit first.  Any landmark that stands out from the rest of the terrain around the body of water is a great place to start.

In the early morning, I start out in shallow water.....from 6 to 10 feet.  As the day progresses, I move out to deeper water.  If there are smelt in the lake, the trout will feed on them and the smelt are often in deep water....sometimes in 50 feet of water.

My favourite technique is to just use a small hook on the end of my line and no other hardware.  I may pinch on a size BB split shot about 18 inches above the hook.  For bait, I use the head of a nightcrawler....not the tail.  I thread the hook through the head of the nightcrawler and expose the point the the hook about 2/3 of the way to the point of the head.  This way, the bait looks like a grub or leech and will move naturally for hours.  I lower the bait until it's very close to the bottom.

If I want to attract trout to my rigs, I will use a very light silver or silver and gold hammered spoon that is very light and thin like a Sutton 44 or a Sutton 77 that is about 18 to 24 inches above the bait.

[venom]

  Now thats a set up I have to try attract them in kind of like a dropper rig?  What do you look for if the lake your fishing is like a bigger round pond and the max depth is around 26ft and you have a solid mud bottom?

[dabluz]

  Now thats a set up I have to try attract them in kind of like a dropper rig?  What do you look for if the lake your fishing is like a bigger round pond and the max depth is around 26ft and you have a solid mud bottom?

There are lots of lakes like that in my region.  The first thing I do is look for something that stands out from the rest of the scenery.  An inlet, a big rock, a rock face, a small island etc.  These are the places I try out first.  Surprisingly enough, these places seem to draw brook trout....summer and winter.  If these structures are on the north shore of the lake where the lake gets the most amount of sun, well.....that's even better.  I especially like to fish a rock face or in front of a very large boulder.  The sun's heat gets transmitted to the bottom of the lake and this excites the insectes and micro-organismes that live in the mud and debris on the lake bottom in front of the bare rock.  As you can imagine, this draws feeding fish.

Since the use of minnows is forbidden in the lakes in my region, I use night crawlers.....actually just the head of a night crawler....the first 1/3 of a night crawler.  I thread my size 10 octopus hook through the worm and when I am about 2/3 of the way I expose the hook point and push the worm up over the knot on the hook.  This way, the tip of the worm moves like a grub or leech.  The rest of the nightcrawler, I cut into small pieces and throw them down the fishing hole.

[snowstorm]

Hi All,

I'm new to the board and new to trout fishing.  I have experience bass and pickeral fishing, I'm from Mass and usually fish shallow, warmer ponds.

I want to use tip ups for trout and I'm looking for some advice/general guide lines for bait, hook size and depth.  Any advice is appreciated.  Thanks.

hey i am new to this forum but have lots of experience ice fishing for trout in Algoma district of Ontario,.  I dont use tip ups i use rods with drags set to light, 6lb test, my bait of choice is medium sized Dace and often i will use a small spoon as a flasher 12" up from the minnow. My favorite spoons are all smaller, little cleo(silver blue,silvergreen), Do Jigger(silver green flash),, sometimes i jig with spoon or white jig head tipped with minnow.. and i usually sit back from my lines as trout seem to spook. well good luck to ya!

[venom]

  There are a few DNR stocked little lakes like this in my area and and I have had better luck fishing big water vs these smaller inland lakes. Also you can not use minnows for bait as well. I think I'm going to check them out again soon.