Among trout anglers – both those who go trout fishing for stockies and wild fish – trout spinners are among the most popular lures on the market. Not only that, but they have been for 100 years, if not more.
It’s hard to argue with the reason why – they catch fish. For whatever reason, trout love metals, and that includes not just spinners but spoons and jigs as well.
It could be the flash, it could be the general signature that looks like a shiny baitfish, or it could be something else. In the case of trout spinners, there’s the added vibration that delivers sonic stimulus to the fish, encouraging them to bite, even in situations in which other finesse tactics just won’t produce.
Trout spinners also make it easy to cover a lot of water very quickly, which is an added bonus. But, with all of this being said, you should introduce some trout minnows into your box this upcoming season. In fact, do it this year.
Trout minnows – also called plugs, stickbaits and jerkbaits, like the Rapala Original Floater and Husky Jerk – are extremely effective and highly versatile. In some conditions they will even handedly outfish spinners.
Let’s start with their efficacy. Like spinners, trout minnows produce flash and sound. They wobble and dart, creating vibrations that attract trout. Perhaps most importantly, the profile and coloration of trout minnows can be matched closely to what forage and baitfish trout are pursuing in a given waterbody. That is, the realism of trout minnows can far surpass spinners.
Secondly, the versatility of trout minnows is superior to spinners. As effective as they are, spinners are pretty limited with respect to technique; you can burn a straight retrieve at various speeds, and some fishermen will even impart pauses, but that’s about all you can do.
With a trout minnow, you can fish shallow or deep (depending on the buoyancy of the lure as well as the sink rate or how deep it will dive) and you can try a whole variety of different cadences and techniques. As a matter of fact, trout minnows provide bite even in less than 4 inches of water. The situation is usually limited to summer months in high elevation creek and stream and it is so exciting to watch the trout chasing your minnow so shallow.
You can crank a straight retrieve with a minnow – either slow or fast – and you can switch up a whole bunch of different erratic retrieves. You can slash the lure side to side, rip it vertically through the water column, give it frequent pauses and twitches, or jerk the minnow around the structure.
Sometimes it is the erratic nature of these retrieves that gets fish to bite. Very often, a trout will strike the lure at the very second it pauses. This versatility is one of the keys to the highly effective nature of trout minnows. Fish will tell you what kind of twitching action they like depending on season, water temp and time of the day.
Does it mean trout minnows should replace the spinners in your tackle box? Definitely not, but it does mean you should carry some in a few different patterns, and should fish them opportunistically when your other presentations are not drawing strikes. Minnows are the core technique of the Trout BFS, and the variety of minnows available by Jackson will help you experience the fun and exciting part of this method.
One other thing: make sure you match your lures to your bait finesse rod, reel and line. It’s a whole system and you won’t get good casting accuracy or distance without the right bait finesse rod, nor will you get good action from line that’s not custom tailored to the rod, reel and lure. A bait finesse system with an appropriate rod and reel will enable you to practice finesse fishing with smaller, lighter lures, delivering better presentations that yield higher catch rates.
The specially designed BFS rod for trout is much different from the BFS rod for bass, making sure the whole setup needs to be worked together.
Remember – it’s not only about the bait. Both spinners and minnows will catch fish, but they’ll perform better with a combo that’s custom chosen for them, and which effectively lets you fish small, light lures.
