Just in the last few years I have tried for rainbows though the ice and had luck on the following.
The trout I was catching was in a dugout setting, what I learned should still apply to larger bodies of water.
To start with I had the best luck with Berkley power bait in the trout nugget group. Both the regular bright colored nuggets and the brown hatchery formula worked.
I placed the nuggets on small hooks on a drop shot rig or just plain with just enough weight on the line to get it to sink.
A Small frozen whole or half minnows in place of the powerbait worked also.
I also had some luck on small soft plastics like the 1" gulp alive models worked on tiny jigs.
Small spoons also worked when jigged. Any small model should work, but I had luck on tiny Len Thompson spoons, PK flutterfish and PK predators in brighter colors.
Here is one of the rainbows I jigged up on a small spoon, a PK flutterfish.
From observing the trout on camera, they usually don't come in slow like pike, perch and walleye sometimes do. They usually cruse in fast and take a quick swipe at it. If they miss the lure quite often that's it and they are gone.
I usually jig the spoons and soft plastics and let the trout nugget or minnow sit still a few feet away.
The rods I were using were medium action for the set rods and light action for the jigging ones.
If you think there are really large trout about medium action might be good for all rods.
Trout are a blast to fish for and even the little guys give a fair bend to the rod.
Good luck when you try for them.
WW
