January 25, 2020
When you think of trout fishing, often your thoughts lead to some winding stream rushing through a mountain valley. While that may be accurate and something worth day dreaming about, we have some great angling for trout close to home. The St. Louis winter trout fishing program provides ample opportunities to catch beautiful trout in an urban setting.
Trout in the city?
Every winter the Missouri Department of Conservation stocks rainbow trout (and a few brown trout) in numerous lakes in the St. Louis area. I believe this year it was a total of 17 lakes within 13 different areas. Some of the lakes are catch and release only until January 31st, and these lakes require use of artificial lures only. Other lakes are catch and keep, and bait be be used in these lakes. Most of the lakes are stocked in early November then stocked again as the season goes on. For more information on these lakes and regulations, check out these links:
https://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/downloads/page/STLWinterTrout.pdf
Which lakes do we fish?
While we have probably fished about every lake listed in the St. Louis area under this program, this year we focused on just a few where we found good success. We prefer catch and release fishing for trout, so we zeroed in on those lakes specifically. These lakes included Jefferson Lake, Walker Lake, and Tilles Park Lake. We also fished a bit at Vlasis Park, Suson Park, and Carondelet Park. We enjoy Wild Acres in Overland but did not make it there at all this year.
Techniques for winter trout fishing
One thing that we learned from fishing these lakes the last few years is that it is important to be flexible. The trout stocked in these lakes are hungry and generally fairly aggressive. Multiple techniques work, including fly fishing, tight-lining jigs, fan casting with spoons or spinners, and setting jigs under a float. Usually one method works better than the others, so it pays to watch what other fisherman are doing to catch fish. The best general advice I can share with you is to use the lightest line possible, and we found that 2# test is more productive than 4# test.
What worked for us?
Billy was fishing one of these lakes early this season and noticed another fisherman catching 10 trout to every 1 that he caught. Billy, being the outgoing, friendly (and competitive) young man that he is, asked the guy what he was doing. This is the snap chat I got from him a few minutes later:
The lure is a simple 1/64 oz jig head tied with some variant of crystal flash. We tie them at home in a few different sizes and variants, and found all of them to be the most effective bait in our entire box. If it is not windy at all we throw them as far as we can and retrieve with a slow jigging motion. If windy, we put them under a weighted bobber and again try to cast as far as possible. Light line and longer spinning rods are very helpful. There were multiple days where one of us would be the guy catching 10 fish while no one nearby would catch more than one. You must think that I am crazy for sharing this with you, but I am thankful for the fisherman who shared it with us. I gave away several of these jigs while fishing and hope that it will work for others as well as it did for us.
Brown Trout
The Missouri Department of Conservation completed a few stockings of brown trout this year. We only fished for them a few times at Carondelet Park. We could see numerous browns swimming the shoreline but they would not bite on any of the regular methods we were used to using, and none of the bait fisherman were catching any either. Young Daniel and I tied on small shallow driving crankbaits and immediately began catching small browns. Billy replicated our success a few days later using the same small crankbaits. However, the brown trout did not seem to do very well in the ponds and many were seen floating near the shore or flailing about looking sick.
Essential tackle box for winter trout
Below is a list of what I would suggest bringing with you when St. Louis winter trout fishing.
- Small hair jigs in white, black, and pink.
- Trout magnets; assorted sizes and colors.
- Size 0 or 1 Mepps spinners or Roostertail spinners.
- Small spoon with small treble hooks (put your own hooks on if the one on the lure is too big out of the package).
- Wooly buggers, foam ants, and small streamers for fly fisherman.
- Shallow diving crankbaits.
- Small bobbers, weighted and unweighted.
- Pliers for removing hooks.
A different experience
St. Louis winter trout fishing is a different experience. Often you share the shoreline with someone who feels they need to crowd your personal space and cast right next to you. Other times there are people using bait where they are only supposed to be using lures, which really drives me crazy. No one likes a cheater. Occasionally you see people keeping trout when they are supposed to be catch and release, or people netting fish rather than using a pole. But I have found the overall experience to be worth these nuisances. The action can be fast at times, and provides an opportunity to catch some really nice trout just minutes from home. Hard to complain about that. Hope to see you on the bank one of these days.
St. Louis Fish Stocking Hotline:
636-300-9651
Like winter trout fishing, but prefer a more serene setting? Check out this past article about Bennett Spring:
