The Best Trout Bait?

What is the best trout bait? There are so many possibilities that it's difficult to pin down one as the best. There's corn, cheese, and marshmallows but those seem weird to me. To me they simply don't seem like something that fish, especially the trout I love so much, should eat. In reality they don't, stocked trout do. To me stocked trout are kind of like those goldfish in the pet store. I simply don't like the fact that stocked trout are raised in an aquarium, and then released so that we can "catch" them. But I suppose the point is that they do eat those 3 baits. The other point is that no matter what I think about stocked trout, when the rivers are too high to fish, I go to my local lake and catch them. So I suppose when it comes to stocked trout, I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

After these three baits, we have the synthetic baits. These are the trout bait that come in little jars. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to? The most popular type is probably Berkley Powerbait. For these stocked trout that I was just railing against, these baits work great! Powerbait, still fished on a set of gang hooks, is a deadly combination for catching trout in a lake that has been stocked. For stocked trout, which most trout in lakes, synthetic trout baits are hard to beat. My friends and I have joked that they must feed the trout this stuff in the hatcheries, because they freakin' love it!

There are also the live baits. Trout baits such as mealworms, maggots, crickets, grasshoppers, and of course the grand daddy of them all, the worm. A live worm is probably the best trout bait that God ever created. I've personally caught more trout using a live worm rigged on a set of gang hooks than I care to remember. The combination is truly deadly. Especially when drifted down the current of a flowing river. In my mind a live worm rigged on a set of pre-tied gang hooks and then bounced off the bottom of a flowing river or stream is, hands down, the best trout bait.

All of the trout baits mentioned in this article are effective. They all have their time and place, but if you put a gun to my head and made me choose just one trout bait it would be the good old American worm!