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We're here today at James Gap State Park we've got the beautiful middle Saluda river flowing behind us that's full of trout.
But today we're going to talk all about what you would need to go out and trout fish.
You know when people think about trout fishing they strictly think about these things right here. Right.
These fly rods. Right. It's that image of trout fishing is often associated with fly-fishing
And it's just one of many ways you can fish for trout in South Carolina.
Fly rods are typically longer than spinning rods, this is an eight and a half foot rod here.
And the main difference is that you're casting something that's almost weightless most of the time.
So rather than the lure carrying the line out you're actually casting the fly line
Fly line is thick and buoyant and you're actually throwing the line which just then carries the fly.
You can go a little bit smaller too. This is a two weight rod here it's great for small wild trout and settings like the one we're in now
You know makes a nice nine-inch rainbow feel like something special when you hook it
So if I were starting out and didn't necessarily want to use a fly rod and reel,
I could then turn to something that I'm more familiar with. Exactly, spin fishing is a great way to fish for trout. Ultralight spinning rods like these are perfect,
You can tie on a 1/8 ounce or 1/16th ounce rooster tail that's a great lure for most trout streams
Shallow streams and rivers, those are perfect you can kind of cast them across the current and reel them back you know
And trout are pretty aggressive with those usually they'll come out and hit them much like a pan fish or a bass would
So let's start out on a stream like the middle Saluda. Well, What would we use?
This is primarily, you could spin fish here but fly-fishing works really well in these shallow streams with a lot of pocket water like you see behind us.
Just these little small pockets most of which hold trout. You've got a lot of different flies to choose from as you can see here.
Nymphs are a class of fly that are intended to be fished below the surface
And you usually fish these with a little bit of weight. You can get split shot just like you would use with fishing with crickets you know for brim or something like that
Put a little piece of that on maybe eight inches above the fly and some of the flies already have beads on them as you can see here which helps get the fly down
You're gonna fish these below the surface. They're intended to imitate aquatic insects
That are drifting under the water or crawling along the bottom or have emerged and are on their way to the surface.
You can use the fly-fishing equivalent of a bobber which is called a strike indicator,
You see a couple varieties of those here. You just keep your eye on that when you see it twitch or stop or change direction suchlike fishing for brim, set the hook exactly.
In order to imitate adult insects at those various life stages you use dry flies and I have a couple boxes of dry flies here. Pass one over.
These are intended to float. So you can put floatant on these and cast them out and hopefully they'll stay on the surface.
You just watch them drift through. Try to keep the water from pulling unnaturally on the fly. You want to make it as natural a drift as possible.
A third class of fly and as you can see these are a lot larger than most of the other types we have here.
These are called streamers and trout people think of trout as eating all these small aquatic insects which they do.
But they also like to eat fish and other larger critters that live in the stream like crayfish
That's what these are intended to imitate and you usually cast these out they're pretty well weighted already as you can see
A lot of them have maybe eyes on them or a bead up front that helps get the fly down.
You're gonna cast this out and just strip it back through make it look like a fish darting through the river or something like that.
So you can change up eye color and? Eye color, the material.
A lot of these flies use material from turkeys, pheasants, a lot of game birds.
So if you're a hunter that's another thing you can do is try to get yourself a turkey, tie flies with it and go catch a trout.
I'm still trying to do that myself. I haven't been successful on the turkey front but. Very neat. So those are all the different types of flies that you would need in your arsenal to there and catch a good trout
So what do we have here in the middle? Oh this is a box of inline spinners, primarily rooster tails which we discussed earlier.
These are great to use with ultralight spinning rods and again you can cast those out across the current bring them back and again they imitate fish.
Primarily crayfish, things that are on the move in the stream actively swimming.
We also have some little jigs here. These are called trout magnets and it's just a you know a little jig head that you put a grub tail on and they're perfect as well.
You can run these below an indicator or a bobber if you want to call it that and put a little split shot on there and let that thing drift through the stream and they're great flies, where you know.
And they come in a variety of colors also. Exactly. I really like some of these inline spinners over here they actually imitate some of the flies that you mentioned.
They do they do they look like dry flies but you can fish those you can kind of run them just under the surface or down below the surface and that get that blade turning.
The flash draws the fish over and then they see the actual you know lure there and they're very effective as well.
So we do have two other lures you mentioned crayfish earlier, This is something that we could also use with a spinning rod?
Exactly I don't know any game fish that doesn't like to eat crayfish and trout are no exception.
So crayfish pattern is a great idea when trout fishing you can cast that across and and swim it right under the surface or down along the bottom,
Like a crayfish that's fleeing from danger that always seems to get that aggressive instinct going in fish and they'll usually eat those.
So a very good key component in our aquatic ecosystems here in South Carolina? Absolutely, good food source.
And then we have this really pretty rainbow plug. Right, diving plugs are also great to use in trout fishing
You know might be more challenging in a shallow stream but in deeper water those are perfect. Cast them across the current and bring them back just under the surface or right along the bottom,
And you're likely to get some hookups with trout. Excellent. So let's talk a little bit more about what that deeper water would entail.
If we were on Lake Jocassee, we wouldn't necessarily use the fly rod and reel.
You can fly fish in lake settings, it's a little bit more challenging but a place like Lake Jocassee where the trout during the warmer months are gonna be pretty deep,
You're gonna want to use some of these larger lures that you see over here, some of these real deep diving plugs and spoons
I really like this one, this tiger strip. A lot of the folks that fish on Lake Jocassee go out in a boat and they'll use a downrigger to get that to swim at a certain depth
And they'll troll around the lake until they get into the schools of trout and it's a great type of lure you know it resembles the large fish in the lake the trout like to eat.
Got a nice little flash with all the glitter and color and then also we've got the flash on the backside with that blade, Exactly.
We've got two more plugs for lake water, right. This one actually has a little, got a little, flash to it on the tail there just adds another dimension to the lure you know make it a little more appealing maybe than a plain one .
And again you can cast that out and let that run really deep and in a lake setting or in a deeper river and you're likely to get some strikes that way.
So that would be a diving plug also with that bill on the front, right.
And then we have this really nifty broken plug or a split plug, whatever you want to call it. Right that jointed plug is another effective thing.
And people think that that adds a lot of action to the lure which it does. You know might give it that extra edge. Makes it swim a little. Right. Make it imitate a swimming fish.
So we've covered a lot of different types of lures that you can use for trout fishing. Everything from what we would need on a small stream with the flies,
To the larger lures for deeper water like Lake Jocassee. Right. It can seem a little frustrating,
But if you guys want to get out there and try your hand at trout fishing, please do so.
We have some helpful aids on our website with all about trout fishing specifically in South Carolina.
You can go to www.dnr.sc.gov to download one of these books. We hope that you enjoyed our trout fishing lure segment and we will catch you guys next time.