winter trout fishing

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islander55

Well-Known Member
hey im just wondering if any one could fill me in with some clues to fishing rainbow trout in the winter. i mostly fish at fuller lake in chemainus with my boat and troll and im just wondering if the fish are deep or shallow in the winter. and what colors are ideal for winter fishing thank you
 
Most of the coastal lakes they will be much shallower rather than deep, they tend to go deeper as the water gets warmer
Try some leech patterns in black,olive or maroon going Dead slow! they dont work for their food this time of the year
Micro leeching under an indicator is my fav around this time,dragging it along the bottom just above the weeds works great doing a hand twist retrieve, also they feed heavily on scuds during the winter
 
I've fished fuller lots, in the winter it seems all the trout get really lazy and jut sit on Bottom looking for an easy meal. Bait fishing with roe or single eggs off bottom works pretty good this time of year. The trolling tends to slow down
 
Traditional wisdom is completely contradictory here. I have heard two different scenarios that trout are "supposed" to do in winter. They either stay down deep and are slow feeders or they are up high in the water column enjoying the cold water, at the surface or in the shallows. I have found in my limited experience that this time of year is excellent for trout fishing, size wise, but you will not have the more frequent action that you might get into on a fall or spring day. This one was caught Dec 17th last year on an obnoxious rattling crankbait 005.jpg This one was November 29th on an original rapalalan party 006.jpg both of these fish were caught trolling at about 2.5 mph. The rapala goes a maximum of 8 feet down, and the crankbait goes about 20. Just goes to show that you can catch fish using just about any method at any time of the year, just be consistent and confident in your set up. All good advice here.
 
nope, sorry it was Elk lake here in Victoria. I'm sure they were stocked at some point but they were very healthy fish. I wonder how long it takes their fins to heal after they are released from the hatchery?
 
hey you fresh water fisherman im starting up a wedding band/spinner/spoon business. i have lots of different color patterns and all lures are garenteed to catch fish. i have a facebook page such as Ltown spinners lures. that page is new but will be updated with some pictures soon. we hope to hear from you guys soon thank you
 
fished at Fuller two weeks ago for the first time.My buddy and I caught nine smallish "catchables" in about two hours, released all. My buddy using a Gibbs lake troll tipped with worm and me using a green bugger on clear intermediate, very slow trolling but fish near surface that day. Made the extra journey south on chance of hooking into one of the 50-2.5 kg. retired "brooder"rainbows dumped in by the Society in early Nov. I fish all winter and I.M.O. the bigger fish are near the surface especially on cloudy days. Westwood is good too.
 
LiquidGuides01 said:
Most of the coastal lakes they will be much shallower rather than deep, they tend to go deeper as the water gets warmer
Try some leech patterns in black,olive or maroon going Dead slow! they dont work for their food this time of the year
Micro leeching under an indicator is my fav around this time,dragging it along the bottom just above the weeds works great doing a hand twist retrieve, also they feed heavily on scuds during the winter
Click to expand...
I agree....I do a lot of winter rainbow fishing on the island .....mostly nanaimo to campbellriver area....fish are in the top twenty feet and like big slow moving plugs, flat fish, minnow flies, Ect.....they want to exert the least amount of energy for the largest amount of protien. Pm me if you would like some specific plugs to try.
 
Did some fishing yesterday and had one of the best days on the lake ive ever had. It was super slow and had only about a half hour window when I started catching them and couldnt keep them off! We got one 4lbs, 3lbs, 2lbs and about 4 more all over 1lb. Only seen 2 of the fresh stocked rainbows and all the others were big hogs!
 
Just got back from Comox, did pretty good! We fish shallow with plugs and managed to catch and release a big 21" cutty and caught a nice keeper at about 15". Prawnhunter, Im interested in your locations for rainbows because in the winter all we ever seem to get into is cutthroat.
 
Cleaned out the inbox!!! Was a little full. Any of you guys want my two cents on rainbows pm me and I'll gladly help you out.
 
Just had another very productive day. Two beauties to the boat today one big 20 inch rainbow and a beastly 22 incher!

All fishing from a boat using powerbait off the bottom
 
I hit elk lake today got one really nice cuthroat and 1 small stocked rainbow on a pink hotshop deepdiver plug. nothing on the fly, i was probably fishing to shallow, time to break out the 6inches per second sink line

kunni
 
Thats an Insane day for winter trout fishing KK, never had a day with over 10 fish to the boat in one day in the winter for Cutties.
dumping snow in the am, then the rain and wind picked up
wouldve been some nice shots of the snow covered hills, didnt bother bringing the camera after seeing the rain at home

Motored up the inlet yesterday to the mouth of a small run off creek, Fished from shore in the estuary and managed to land 2 feisty cutties about 16-17 inches
Never seen so many F*#&in seals in the bay, had to of been atleast ten in one group cruising along the beaches, they stayed away from me most of the time but had the cutties so spooked.
Good luck to ya guys, hopefully this wind and rain will let up soon
 
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