I started fishing at a very early age to the point of joking that I was the one holding the rod in my mother’s hands as she carried me to birth. I have put behind me many styles of fishing over the years, from floating flies, to bouncing row, casting spinners and pitching plugs. After reaching statues of over a thousand fish boated a year I realized that I was just tricking easy to trick fish and needed a challenge as an accomplished fisherman, so I decided to put heart and soul into Trophy Brown Trout Fishing. Hopefully you read the great article by Mark Knocks about your trophy trout; today I find mine to be 10 lbs. Or better not an ounce less. Lucky for me I am very head strong so the dedication it has taken to achieve my goal has come relatively easy. The heartache of getting skunked time and time again was the hard part with questions in the mind of what am I doing wrong? I have found myself with good fortune as I have great friends with great skills in this area. One day a friend shared with me “If you are not getting your fish you are doing five things wrong!” and “You will need to figure out what they are!”
Now with that being said I will take you in a different direction. As you well know Trophy Brown Fisherman do not relinquish information that they have spent years achieving, this is not to deceive you or not to share but merely to protect their true love! To put it simply if a guy was to have a one night stand come Monday morning he may be apt to go to work and share of the conquest with friends and co-workers but when he meets his wife you will not hear a word. Just ask me about fishing four pound Rainbows even large ones, I will spill my guts ask me about Trophy Browns and I will simply point to the wedding photo on the mantel.
I will share with you some ideals that I find to be my security blanket for catching the Trophy. I will do my best to share the wedding with you but make no mistake you will not hear of the wedding night. To start the way I look at it is I need to align five stars to increase my odds for the Trophy. First let’s start with gear at this point you will need to expect to spend Hundreds of dollars getting geared up, I say this because it is a true fact; the money will not matter if you are true to the sport. You will easily dump $300.00 in gear just to keep yourself warm through some very inclement weather you will need to experience to achieve this Trophy, next we will need equipment to get us to the lake, tire chains for the 4wd, shovel, tow ropes, Chainsaw…the list goes on. Next you will spend close to $3.00 per lure up grading the hooks to a more razor sharp quality let alone the price of the lure you are about to attach them too. Now let’s get to the meat we would like to nab our Trophy on our favorite quality rod and reel knowing it won’t buckle under the pressure of this iron headed beast, I will give you a quick rundown of my gear. I start with an 8’6″ St. Croix medium rod with a fast action tip, I employ a C6500 ambassador reel lined with 30 lb. Test Power Pro braid, attached to it with the “Nelson Knot” is 50′ of 12 lb. Vanish (red) fluorocarbon then a #10 black barrel swivel 4 more ft. Of 12 lb. Vanish with a #1 Berkley cross lock to complete. Now this set up is not needed in all circumstances but I tie that way every time. The Reason? I can do it in my sleep so when I have the opportune times to fish in the dark or my hands are freezing on that morning run I can re-tie without fail very quickly not to miss prime fishing time.
My next star you will get to spend thousands of hours rather than dollars and less than half will be on the water. I’m talking about the study of our target fish, their food (bait fish), and the fisheries we will be fishing. In high school I hated biology I believe I barely passed with a “D”. Today I cannot get enough biology as I probably study the trout’s food more than the trout. Take Lake Almanor for instance, the main forage is Pond Smelt so we sit back and learn when the proper time of year rolls around with the proper water temp of 42′ plus degrees will kick the Pond Smelt into spawn and move them to the shorelines at this time the Browns will soon follow look for this to happen around April. At Shasta lake we find it to have warmer waters at the surface then trout prefer but the bait fish (Shad) like the warmer water so I look at it as I will move from my comfort zone “the couch” to fish for Browns in the coldest of weather why wouldn’t the Browns move to warmer water to fish for their favorite! Let’s move to the fishery; we need to study lots! River flows through the system, which areas will trap bait fish and hold game fish, as well as how currents and bait move through the system, the bait may swim freely to one area but with dam releases or wind they may be forced in other directions, this is where homework and an open mind will help.
By now you can see I am giving you ideas and not answers, we like to say you need to catchyour fish and not mine, the good news is in today’s technology we have unlimited resources with the internet . Spend time typing in key words and you will trip on all kinds of helpful information. I would suggest you spend time on sites that are written by biologist, scientist, or sites like “Epic Trout” and other quality sites like it. I would stay away from the site that includes guys beating their chests and boasting of their last 3 lb. Kokanee or 6 lb. truck trout. Don’t get me wrong it is not that you can’t learn from them the fact is they can’t teach you! There is a lot of info out there whether you appreciate the person or not if they have quality fish to their name you may want to spend time reading or watching their videos as almost every time something is shared that you need to know whether they know they are sharing or not. Note: this article does share you just have to read between the lines!
The third star for me is proper lures and times to be fishing for these lunkers. I find it necessary to fish large lures fast to weed out small fish. Next I custom paint all of my lures for two reasons, first reason I want my fish on my lure, growing up as a fly fisherman I was taught to tie flies at age 10 probably to keep me out of grandma’s hair. I now realize there is nothing better than catching your fish on your lure. Second reason is coloring, many great anglers have pulled Trophy’s with production lures but what I add to my lures is more fish-ability huh! Your standard chub lure (gold and black) was meant for stained water so if I take that and add some blue or green overtones I just made it a quality lure for more clear water now I have a lure I can fish 80% of the time productively giving me the opportunity to fish more as I change lures less. Now we need to know when to fish, times of year, times of day and times of cycles. Once you realize Browns don’t care for light you will find yourself fishing low light conditions whether it be early morning, sun set or even mid-day with black skies and chop on the water this you will find to be favorable conditions for your success.
The fourth star is probably the first thing I figured out it has to do with scent. The biggest factor to me is to get my scent off of the gear so I wash religiously with a non-scented soap, if I happen to pop some tobacco in my lip or rub my nose with thumb and forefinger off to the wash rack I go. I am not sure I believe it is totally necessary but I do add my favorite Pro Cure scent to my lures, I believe more to hide my smell then the scent attracting fish.
At the beginning I told you my buddy said I was doing five things wrong and that is why I came up with five stars right. The fifth star is luck for me I believe if all is done right I have half of luck on my side, the other half of luck is whether I get an 8 ½ lb. Brown or a 10 lb. plus. So if we take the time to get to the lake before most, run clean runs with tuned lures with none of our scent on them, size up so our time is not spent pulling in small fish and leave or lures in the lake with confidence we will increase our odds of that Trophy. The last thing I will add is you should align yourself with friends that can encourage your passion, it will mean a lot as you will question yourself every trip.
By West Guin
