The 5 Trout Lures That Catch Fish When Nothing Else Works

Walk into any tackle shop and the trout aisle will try to sell you fifty lures in fourteen colors. Here's the truth from decades on the water: five lures cover ninety percent of trout fishing, and they're all cheap enough to lose without crying. This is the dead-simple kit — when to throw each one, and how.

1. The inline spinner — the search engine

A Panther Martin or Mepps in 1/8oz is the first lure out of the box, always. Cast quartering upstream, reel just fast enough to feel the blade thump, and cover water until fish show themselves. Silver blade on sunny days, gold when it's gray. The kit on our gear page is the pocket-sized version of this whole philosophy.

2. The Original Floater — the wounded minnow

Rapala's balsa minnow has caught trout since 1936 because it does one thing perfectly: it swims like something dying. Cast it tight to logjams and undercut banks, twitch-twitch-pause, and hang on during the pause. Trout hit it out of pure instinct even when they're not feeding — which is precisely when nothing else works.

3. The Kastmaster — the depth charge

When trout are sulking deep — midsummer heat, winter cold, high pressure — a 1/8oz Kastmaster spoon gets down to them. Cast, count it down a foot per second, and jig it back with little hops. It also casts a mile, which makes it the shore angler's best friend on lakes.

4. The Rooster Tail — the stocked-trout specialist

Freshly stocked rainbows grew up chasing pellets, and the Rooster Tail's pulsing hackle tail is the closest thing to that buffet. Fish it slow and steady through pools and tailouts within a week of any stocking. White or black, 1/16 or 1/8oz — keep it simple.

5. The 1/16oz marabou jig — the last resort that never fails

When the water is cold, high, or muddy and everyone is getting skunked, a tiny marabou jig drifted under a float catches fish. The feathers breathe with the smallest current, and trout that ignore everything else will slide over and sip it. It looks like nothing. It works like magic.

Colors? Buy the five lures, not the fifty colors: silver, gold, black, white, and one firetiger for dirty water. Our water clarity and lure color matrix breaks down the exact pairing. Now go cover some water.