Best Bait For Rainbow Trout: 5 Most Effective Baits Used By Guides

There are a lot of different types of bait for rainbow trout, but instead of trying to determine what the best bait for rainbow trout is all on your own, wouldn’t it be awesome to know which rainbow trout baits expert river guides would choose and why. This article tells you what I and other river guides consider the 4 best baits for rainbow trout.

The best baits for rainbow trout are small garden worms, egg-type baits, artificial flies, and plastics. The key is knowing how and when to use each of them and how to determine which bait the trout wants the day you are there. Using the correct size and color is also important.

What if you were standing in a good pool with some once rainbow trout in it and a very experienced river guide got there at the same time you did. What bait do you think he would try first, and do you think it would be the same as you? Let’s find out.

Although this article is primarily about baits for rainbow trout when river fishing, these baits will also work well when fishing for rainbow trout in ponds, reservoirs, or in lakes.

Best Bait For Rainbow Trout

As a guide, the bait that I would choose to put on my hook or my client’s hook would depend on the time of year, the natural food source at the time, and the river conditions.

You see, good guides think before they start fishing and we think differently than regular anglers. I know this is true because I watch guys fish all the time and I see the things they do wrong that prevent them from catching the maximum amount of fish that they should.

I see bad hooks, bad setups, and bad baits, as well as a few other things that prevent them from catching trout.

But it doesn’t have to be that way and you are here learning so let’s get started so you can do it better.

Fishing Bait For Rainbow Trout

I will get to the best baits shortly but let me tell you first that knowing what the best rainbow trout bait in the world is will not do you any good if you have a bad setup and fish it poorly.

Before you even grab your bait out of your vest or pack, make sure these 3 key thing things are perfect and understood first.

Methods For Bait Fishing

Choose the best method that works for the type of water you will be fishing. If it’s all shallow pocket water that is 12″ to 30″ deep using the float fishing method is probably going to mean fewer fish. In that type of water, using the bottom bouncing method will catch you 10X more trout.

But if it’s a nice deep about six feet deep with a slow to moderate current then a bait under and float is a much better option. So pick your method wisely and change if you need to. Going back and forth between float fishing for trout and bottom bouncing for trout is not that hard and is worth doing if you want more and bigger trout.

Now if you are fishing still water like a local trout pond or lake, then the best method is likely going to be float fishing or plunking.

Set-Up For Bait Fishing

So you have chosen your method of fishing wisely, that will only get you so far if you have a poor setup. Trout are line shy, hook shy, and people and noise shy, so getting any of these wrong and you won’t catch as many trout as you could.

If you put the best bait for rainbow trout on a huge hook, or a hook with a line so thick you could tow a car with it, guess what, few if any fish bite that bait.

It’s also important to stay quiet and don’t spook them because even if your setup is perfect and you have a great bait on and you present it well, once they see you and they go lock-jaw, you will really struggle to get them to bite.

I discuss the best leader and line set-ups on the methods pages, the setup for float fishing, and my setup for bottom bouncing are all on those two pages linked above.

Presentation

Presentation is very important and if you want the best bait for rainbow trout to work as well as it can, then you need to present it well. There is a saying that I tell my clients because I believe it is 100% true. ” A bad bait fished good is better than a good bait fished bad”.

I teach anglers how to present their baits effectively so they catch more fish on the float fishing page and the bottom bouncing page.

If you have ever wondered how or why river fishing guides catch so many more fish than regular anglers, that is it, use a great bait, use the best method for the type of river, use the best setup for that method, and then present it well. That is the formula to catching fish like a river guide.

What Is The Best Bait For Rainbow Trout

Now let’s get into what you came for, and that is what are the best baits for rainbow trout. I chose the best bait based on my observations when I arrive at the river so if I list worms as the best bait and you go out during a drought in august worms might not be very effective.

For this reason, I will discuss each bait, with some tips on how and when to fish it

Worms Are The Best Bait For Rainbow Trout

Although I say that worms are not great in the heat of the summer, they are still worth a try but don’t show up to the river or lake with nothing but worms just in case they don’t want to eat worms that day.

I have also found that those guys that take huge dew worms, break them in half and then ball them up on the hook will rarely catch any good size wild trout. Sure, you might fool some dumb stocked trout, but hooking a worm once or twice so that it looks natural will catch you 10X more trout.

I also find that putting a worm on a giant hook isn’t as effective and that using a hook size relevant to the bait size is important. I catch plenty of 5 to 10-pound steelhead on size 10 hooks so there is no need for a size two hook.

I also prefer smaller 2 to 4-inch garden or red worms because they work better than 8-inch dew worms do.

Another thing you should seriously consider is plastic worms. I fish plastic worms 95 percent of the time and when fishing in the current I find they work equally as well as live worms except that they are more durable and rarely fall off and are much easier to pack into a vest or fishing pack.

My favorite brands of plastic worms are:

• Berkley PowerBait Floating Trout Worm 3” – Check prices at FishUSA.com or at BassPro Shops – HERE
• Mad River Worms – Check prices at FishUSA.com – HERE
• Raven Steelhead worms – Get them at FishHeadsCanada.net

I discuss how to make a great rainbow trout bait like a worm much more effective on my page Fishing With Worms For Trout and Steelhead: 10 Guide Tips.

So would a worm be the first bait a river guide would use, I would say it is a

Egg Baits Are One Of The Best Baits For Rainbow Trout

But, not many fish are spawning mid-summer so eggs may not be your best choice then, however, they are still worth a try, and I do find that in mid-summer, going small like a 6mm or 8mm trout bead often works better than a big spawn sack will. Safe you spawn sacs for dirty water and for spring and fall fishing.

There are things that river guides do to make their spawn and beads more effective. Find out more at Spawn Bags – Guide Secrets For More Trout And Steelhead and at Bead Fishing For Trout – Easy Guide Secrets.

Artificial Flies Are The Best Bait For Rainbow Trout

Artificial flies imitate these aquatic insects, and other insects like grasshoppers, bees, beetle, or crickets that might fall in the water, which makes flies the best bait for rainbow trout.

Sure, there are times of the year when a large worm or an egg bait might work better, but you can also have worm flies and egg flies so you can match those baits with flies. Flies can also imitate minnows or other baitfish and even leeches.

Flies can also be fished on the surface when rainbow trout are feeding on drifting flies. Fishing on the surface can’t be done effectively with other baits so if a trout is only feeding on the surface and you don’t have flies, you’re out of luck.

Some great and effective flies that I use are:

Pheasant Tail Nymph, The Frenchie / Hot Spot Pheasant Tail Jig Fly, and the Davie’s Polish Pheasant Tail Nymph

Other great flies can be found on my page Trout Flies

If you are a spin fisherman check out my page How To Fish Flies With Spinning Gear: 2 Best Methods

Grub-Type Baits For Rainbow Trout

Not many anglers think of these as baits, but grubs, wax worms, mealworms, and maggots can be excellent baits for rainbow trout. You may not find them at your local fishing store but I have found them at the local pet store since people buy them for their pet reptiles.

You could also choose the plastic grubs which can usually be found at your local fishing store or online.

Fish them with small size 10 to 14 hooks with the methods I mentioned above. Grubs are often best during the heat of the summer.

Leeches And Crawfish As Bait For Trout

I have seen huge trout nosing into the rocks looking for crawfish and I have seen them smash a well-presented live or fake leech.

This is why I tell anglers that leeches and Crawfish are one of the best baits for rainbow trout. The other great thing about them is that they live in rivers and lakes so they are there year-round which means these are good baits for rainbow trout almost any time of the year.

Minnows And Bait Fish

Minnows and other baitfish are probably the bait that I use the least but not because they are not a great bait for rainbow trout, it’s because they are so hard to carry with me on the river, especially with all the other stuff I have with me.

If I do need to use minnows I will often use fake minnows. The best imitation minnows that I have used are the Berkley Gulp! Alive! Minnows. You can also jig these imitation minnows with great success.

The Best Bait For Rainbow Trout Q&A

That wraps up this article on the best bait for rainbow trout. I know other anglers will have a favorite bait that works great where they fish and if you do that is great.

If you have any questions, comments, or a favorite bait for rainbow trout that you would like to share, let me and the reader know in the comments section below.

Tight Lines,

Graham