Upper AR

[O.mykiss hunter]

I've caught just a few trout drifting those floating worms with a split shot in riffles, but like I said they are not as effective as real nightcrawlers. I'm gonna continue trying them out along with other artificial lures and see what happens...although I probably won't be going on a trout hunt again until the salmon run dies off in November in which live bait will be prohibited anyways.

[dirty530]

Good stuff Dirty! I feel you on the bleeding issue, but nothing seems to work quite as good as a real worm does it? You should try Berkley Power Floating Trout Worms, still not as good as the real thing but they seem to be decent last time I was out trying them.

I have those power floating worms and I use them for pan fish all the time. You've caught trout on the upper AR using those??

[dirty530]

When you say you use a 1/2 slip sinker and a Crawler in moving water or are you fishing pools?

I've tried shallow riffles, deeper riffles, etc. I've spent an hour or so on each trip trying these things but they just haven't produced like night crawlers. I'm hitting the bottom, but I'm not reeling in fish lol I'm doing everything I do with worms but something's not working; I'm probably just too impatient :/

[O.mykiss hunter]

Good stuff Dirty! I feel you on the bleeding issue, but nothing seems to work quite as good as a real worm does it? You should try Berkley Power Floating Trout Worms, still not as good as the real thing but they seem to be decent last time I was out trying them.

[Marv]

When you say you use a 1/2 slip sinker and a Crawler in moving water or are you fishing pools? If your fishing this set up in moving water than stick any of the other mentioned baits on the hook and it should work just as good as the worm.

I've hooked a few trout this year in some class 4 rapids. You may need heavier weight to tick bottom but you can do it. If the water is really fast fish the side of current seems. Once you get it you'll be deadly as your pretty good already so stick with it. We fish a lot of PG&e pumphouse stations witch will raise the river 3' in a couple minutes leaving you in stranded or worse.

[dirty530]

Fished the upper AR yesterday at a new spot I've always wanted to try. Tried to steer clear of using worms so I tried everything else (jerk baits, jigs, spoons, salmon eggs, spinners) to no avail. I saw plenty of fish jump so they were in there... very frustrating. I believe I'm having more trouble with using other lures compared to some of you other sniffers because the AR is so deep and swift. These dam pulses can be very fisherman unfriendly sometimes. I really want to commit to jigs, woolybuggers, and other conventional tackle so I can leave the worms at home but I haven't been able to entice them so I've been having to resort to tossing worms with a 1/4oz egg sinker pinned up 22" with a small spit shot just to barely hit bottom. On this particular river there is a lot more bug action so the trout's diet is already geared toward flies, making it sometimes hard to entice them with a lure. *NEED TO LEARN TO FLY FISH!* Switched to a worm and nailed 11-12 of them, only 4 of them decent size tho. These bows were super skinny due to fighting the year round current, but some of the prettiest, perfect specimens of trout ever! Pics don't do justice at all! Had to keep two bleeders, exactly why I hate using worms

Now for the good stuff:

First catch


Bleeders


One of the bleeders next to the water. Pretty scenery