Large brown trout are not victims of traditional lures

A mealworm is not a 4+ pound brown trout’s first choice of food. Like most humans, when a brown trout emerges from its shadow-infested lair, it wants a bite of meat. Most of the time, a big thug will have to settle for a chunk of creek or smaller trout, though they’d rather chase after a clumsy frog or mouse that wandered off the bank and found its way to the drink.

Big browns are like big snakes, they eat something huge and then relax for extended periods of time. Large browns will eat smaller flies, but only when they are abundant enough to justify the energy spent on them. Most of the time, they hunt brook chub and other small trout which they catch off guard and inhale. Despite this fact, most anglers continue to use small fathead minnows when chasing their trophies. Besides being incredibly annoying to handle and hook, fatheads don’t have enough weight to make a 6+ pound trout really interested in an attack.

To really rile up a big brown, you need to use lures that most reserve for chasing bass. The most productive of these lures are medium-sized hard baits such as husky jerks, shad raps, and, in shallower currents, floating knuckle rapalas. The key to these lures is their action, a large fish that ignores a slowly moving spinner next to its face will aggressively maul a knuckle rapala that yanks past, it just can’t deprogram its instincts fast enough to avoid the hooks. triples of a well recovered. bait