Going to school out in B.C, I miss out on all of the fall bass fishing back in Ontario. I now spend the majority of the fall season fishing for Rainbows and taking advantage of the lakes and rivers around Northern B.C. Shortly after moving out here, I spent the majority of the season throwing a variety of spoons and spinners with a good amount of success. Being a bass fisherman however, I had a difficult time finding use for my large collection of bass fishing gear that seemed to just be sitting and rusting in their boxes. Becoming more and more homesick, I eventually decided to test out some of my bass fishing methods for catching these aggressive fall trout.

During the previous summer's tournament season, I was having a lot of success throwing flukes and small swim-baits. These were not only catching bass, but also catching the attention of large pike and walleye. Due to the apparent versatility of these baits, I decided that I would give them a try out in my new province. These lakes are usually picked apart by fly fisherman due to the success that they have during the summer and spring, but I figured that I might have a chance with these larger baits, as these lakes can produce trophy sized fish that are most aggressive during the fall. I was also looking to match what these fish might be eating as there are fingerling trout and goldfish that are often prayed on while these fish are at their most aggressive.

The biggest challenge in figuring out which baits would be best suited for these lakes was finding the right size of baits appropriate for these fish. Unlike bass, trout have very small and less durable mouths that would obviously not take traditional bass gear such as spinnerbaits and spooks without suffering significant injuries. For this reason, finesse gear is best suited for targeting these trout, specifically single hooked gear fished on spinning set-ups to avoid injuring the fish and to best match the bait that these fish are eating.

My first time trying this method in B.C was extremely successful, landing a fish on my first cast, and catching 8 more throughout the course of the day. I decided to throw 3" Lunkerhunt Bento Baits on a small dropshot hook and a Lunkerhunt dropshot weight tied below the bait. For larger fish, the 4.5" Bento's were working as well, either rigged as a dropshot or slowly swam on a jighead. One important thing to note, even while fishing this rig, is that these fish are not bass and do not require a tournament style hook set. Trout are much more sensitive and do not require large hooks and hard hook sets in order to land them (hence the success of fly fisherman in trout fishing). That being said, I would highly recommend this method when looking for fall trout, or even while fishing lakes that might contain them as it can be extremely successful, fun, and easy to learn.

Fall Trout on Bass Gear