Over 12 years ago my fishing mentor passed onto the next plane of existence, but during the time that he was alive he was the greatest trout fisherman I've personally ever known. The man caught trophy trout in fishing streams that got a ton of fishing pressure. Streams in which other anglers simply didn't have the success that he was able to achieve. Sure other people caught trout, but my mentor caught trout that would have been trophies in Arkansas or Montana but he fished in central Pennsylvania. During the time we fished together, he taught me some of his trout fishing secrets and I want to pass some of them on to you.
1) Locate a Large Trout - one of my mentors hard and fast rules was that once he located a large trout, he would fish for it until he caught it. In his experience, large trout would find a suitable area and pretty much stay there, especially on heavily fished rivers. These areas weren't the kind of areas that you might think. That's probably how the trout grew to be so large.
2) Large Trout Don't Expend Much Energy - My mentor always said that large trout (I'm talking over 22 inches in fairly small rivers) expend as little energy as possible. He would say that they like to lay there and let food come to them.
3) Large trout LOVE live crayfish - My mentor used to have me go out into the stream behind my house and catch him live crayfish so that he could use them for bait once he had a large trout located. The crayfish had to be no more than 2 inches long…..FYI. He would then rig them on a set of gang hooks and catch trophies.
4) Always Use Gang Hooks - My mentor is the one who invented the act of using gang hooks for freshwater fishing ( at least as far as I know). A set of gang hooks are simply 2 small hooks tied in tandem. Gang hooks allow the angler to present their bait in an incredibly natural way, and this was a key according to him. Your bait had to appear as natural as possible. Gang hooks are fairly easy to tie yourself, or you can go somewhere like JRWfishing.com and purchase them, the bottom line is that my mentor insisted on using them.
The above trout fishing secrets will help you catch more and bigger trout. They most certainly did for my fishing mentor, God rest his soul. I'll tell you, when that man passed on to whatever it is that comes next, the trout of central Pennsylvania and upstate New York breathed a collective sigh of relief. He was, without question, the best trout fisherman that I've ever met.
Trevor Kugler is co-founder of JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 20 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country…..Montana!
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