Rebel’s Tracdown series of jerkbaits are great options for trout anglers. These baits come in both barbed (top) and barbless (bottom) versions. (Photo courtesy of Rebel Lures)
April 25, 2025
By Frank Sargeant
Trout tend to eat a ton of small invertebrates and other little morsels, which is why many tiny fishing flies work so well. However, this isn’t to say that trout—particularly big browns, rainbows and lakers (technically char)—throughout the Midwest don’t sometimes prefer larger forage. While you might catch many fish on a size-22 midge, including the occasional large trout, bigger fish do frequently like big baits. Therefore, one might consider, at times, setting down the fly rod, picking up the spinning rod and offering trout what looks like a serious meal: a minnow-imitating jerkbait.
WHEN TO FISH THEM Fly fishing can be hard in spring on many rivers due to rains and snowmelt clouding the water. However, a big, bright jerkbait is easy for fish to see, and it may be just what they want as the water starts to warm and stimulate their appetites. In lakes and ponds, as big trout leave the winter depths and begin prowling nearer the shoreline, a jerkbait fished on the edge of the drop can be deadly. And jerkbaits have an advantage over inline spinners, like the many Mepps and Worden’s Rooster Tail types, as they suspend rather than sink to bottom where they can snag in pools and eddies or on rocky shores.
WHICH ONES TO USE The Rebel Tracdown Minnow is one of the best jerkbaits for trout, and the company even makes a version with barbless hooks, the TD 47, for extra-easy release. The TD10, at 3.5 inches, is the big-fish special, and the brown trout color is highly effective.
Rapala also makes many good ones in this genre, including the Rapala CountDown in the 07 and 09 sizes. The Rapala CountDown Elite is also outstanding, as is the Rapala Scatter Rap CountDown in size 07. LiveTarget’s 2-inch Trout Jerkbait , available in brook, brown or rainbow trout patterns, is another good one, and a fantastic mimic of young-of-the-year trout. The Berkley Hit Stick in 1/8- and 1/4-ounce sizes also does well.
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Whatever lure you pick, fish it on a loop knot, like the perfection loop, so that it can have maximum action.
HOW TO FISH THEM Standard Strategies Stream trout bite best on offerings that come to their feeding lanes naturally with the current. You can bring the jerkbait to life with a series of small twitches as it drifts. This often works better for trout than the more vigorous jerks you might use to entice smallmouth or largemouth bass.
As with streamer fishing, the strike often comes at the end of a swing, as the lure starts across the current, perhaps because the trout thinks it is swimming harder in order to escape. Keep your line up off the water as much as possible so it doesn’t create drag on the lure. Take up slack as it floats downstream, then let it swing across what you hope is the prime habitat in the run or hole.
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Fish water closest to you first with short swings. Then, gradually work out to as far as you can cast. This covers all the feeding lanes where fish might be waiting without spooking ones that might be closer to you, as a long first cast might.
Alternative Approaches You can also score by throwing a jerkbait upstream and working it back down. This is trigger-action fishing, where you put in a lot of short jerks and reel rapidly to keep ahead of the current. This approach tends to provoke some smashing strikes, often from the biggest fish in the pool or run.
It’s also possible to dead-drift a suspending or floater-diver jerkbait to likely cover, such as a log partially across the flow. Once it drifts down near the log, you then activate it by closing the bail. As it starts to wiggle in the current, any trout under the log is likely to come out and grab it. This same approach can be employed near undercut grassy banks, where big browns often like to hide and pick off any edibles that happen to float close by.
In lakes, a topwater jerkbait sometimes works well, especially fished over submerged grass or right at the edge of a drop to deeper water. Light twitches that just make the lure nose down and then pop back up often do the job on calm water, but if there’s a wind ripple, more vigorous action might draw the strikes. And of course, with brown trout, there’s often an especially aggressive topwater bite in the last minutes of daylight and again at first light in the morning.
The Right Rigs Throwing these relatively light lures requires a light or medium-light action rod, but a fast tip will give you the best control and hook-setting power. Rods 5 to 6 feet long are easiest to handle on smaller flows, like Wisconsin’s Kinnickinnic River (a great fishery that’s easily accessed). However, a 7-foot model like the St. Croix Triumph TSR70MLF will give you much better casting distance on large rivers, lakes and tailwater fisheries. The more you can reach out on big water, like Michigan’s Manistee River, the more trout you’re likely to catch.
A 500-sized reel, like the Shimano Vanford A , is ideal for small to medium streams. Consider moving up to a 1500- or 2000-size reel for longer casts on lakes and big tailwaters.
The lightest line you can fish successfully will get the most strikes—6-pound mono or fluorocarbon at the most, 4-pound on small or ultra-clear waters. The lighter line is not only harder for fish to see, it also brings out maximum action in the lures. (On the downside, it means you’ll break off more lures, so carry plenty of extras.)
CONSERVATION CONSIDERATIONS Jerkbaits with multiple treble hooks make it harder to release trout you don’t want for the table than do single-hook lures. In some waters, lures with treble hooks are not allowed, so always check local regulations.
One way to reduce potential problems is to flatten the barbs on trebles slightly with pliers. Completely barbless trebles, in my experience, don’t always keep fish hooked up all that well. Pinch the barbs just a bit, and you’ll find that they hold most fish but still come out easily with forceps when you’re ready to release.
Replacing trebles with larger single hooks is another option, but it can affect the lure’s sink rate and action. It also results in fewer fish staying “stuck” long enough for a photo.
The usual cautions apply for successfully releasing fish. Keep it in the net, in the water, while you remove the hooks. Hold the fish up for a brief horizontal photo, supported both at the jaw and the tail with wet hands, and get it back into the water quickly. It might be there again next year, a bit longer and heavier, ready to strike your jerkbait once more.
This article was featured in the April 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe
