3 simple, non-traditional—and very effective—tactics for spring trout

#1  MARABOU JIGS

The marabou jig craze first gained its Canadian foothold more than two decades ago on my home waters of northwestern Ontario’s Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods. Rimmed with fishing lodges, these immense U.S. border waters see so many visiting American anglers, it was inevitable Midwest finesse techniques would arrive there first. And once savvy Canadian guides saw marabou jigs work such wonders, it didn’t take them long to modify and improve upon the presentation. It remained the best-kept bass secret for years, until the word finally started leaking out.

The very first time I shared details on how to fish with marabou jigs was in 2016, during my presentations at the Spring Fishing and Boat Show in Mississauga, Ontario. There were 17 bass swimming around in the huge “Hawg Trough” demonstration aquarium, and I hooked up 27 times while conducting my two seminars, clearly catching some of the fish more than once.

Not surprisingly at the end of each seminar, folks rushed to the stage to look at the miracle lure I had been using. Since the marabou jig is so small and made from feathers, many thought it looked like a trout bait. Little did they know how right they were. The truth is, marabou jigs don’t distinguish—they’re equal-opportunity fish catchers that attract and trigger trout as well as, and often better than, they fool smallmouth bass.

I’m sure I would have come to that conclusion on my own, but it was my good friend Ned Kehde of Ned rig fame who put me on the fast-track to trout success. Around 15 years ago, Ned and I were staying at Big Cedar Lodge on Missouri’s Table Rock Lake, fishing for bass. Over dinner one night, he told me about the incidental rainbow trout he’d been catching back home in Kansas using the same marabou jigs.

Since angling opportunities are limited on the Great Plains, the local fishery agencies often stock trout in bass waters for anglers to catch during the fall, winter and spring, when the water is colder. So even though Ned had been targeting bass with his marabou jigs, he couldn’t keep the rainbows from also taking the bait. With all this in mind when I returned home, I fine-tuned the jigs to suit my local trout waters and met with great success.

It’s relatively easy to make your own marabou jigs. The key is to keep everything balanced and light, tying the fluffy marabou around a quality 1/16- to 1/8-ounce mushroom or ball-head jig poured on a small, short-shank, razor-sharp #4 or #6 jig hook. Just be sure to use choice marabou plumes featuring delicate, whisker-like fibres. Alternatively, you can buy ready-made marabou jigs from many different tackle makers. In my opinion, the best are “Big” Jim’s Jigs, handmade by Ontario’s Big Jim McLaughlin himself.

I like to say that any colour of hair jig will work for trout, so long as it’s black, which is also true when you’re fishing for smallmouth bass. That said, I’ve also had many days when I produced more and bigger trout by swimming olive, brown and, especially, green pumpkin fluff for brookies, rainbows and splake.

If your experience with marabou jigs is limited, you might think they’re too light to cast, but keep in mind they get much heavier once the mop-like hair soaks up water. For even more weight, I add a tiny segment of a soft-plastic worm that matches the colour of the marabou. I slide it onto the hook behind the hair, adding a drop of super glue to the shank to hold it in place. This also causes the marabou to flare like the mane on an angry lion, further inciting the trout to bite.

PRESENTATION

All that’s needed to complete this set-up is a seven- to 7½-foot, medium-light- to light-action spinning rod with a 2500 series reel loaded with a quality four- to six-pound, gel-spun, super-fine line. I also add an 18-inch monofilament or fluorocarbon leader that’s the same strength as my main line.

Early in the morning and later in the afternoon and evening, there’s no deadlier approach than casting a marabou jig around shoreline cover. Fallen trees are obvious, but it’s doubly deadly to swim the jig over sunken stumps and logs littering the area in front of a beaver lodge.

Hair jigs of any colour will work for trout—so long as it’s black

If you’re fishing at high noon, especially during the warmer summer months, the fish will typically pull out into deeper, cooler water and drop down closer to bottom. That’s when many anglers think the fishing gets tougher, but I beg to differ. It actually concentrates the trout, creating a highly competitive atmosphere you can exploit for all that it’s worth.

That’s especially true if there’s a slight breeze blowing parallel to a shoreline featuring a knee- to waist-deep boulder-strewn flat, or sparse weed or reed bed. The bigger and more isolated the structure is, the better, as long as it juts out and quickly dips into the main-lake basin. When I’m fly fishing on a spot like that, my favourite tactic is to drift a balanced leech under an indicator, with the purist in me hating to admit a marabou jig is even more efficient and effective.

Whether you use a Frog Boat like me, or a canoe or kayak, anchor from the stern so you’re casting downwind and aligned with the sloping break. Rather than use a strike indicator or float, I instead cast the jig parallel to the edge of the drop, working each successive cast out further from the lip into deeper and deeper water. As the jig sinks, I also count it down. That way, when a trout hits, I can replicate the count on each follow-up presentation to get the lure back in the strike zone.

Finally, don’t be in a rush—the marabou jig is so subtle, it will rise at a 45-degree angle if you retrieve it too quickly. Instead, you want the lure to travel horizontally through the water column each time you bring it back to the boat.