Finding out what the local trout have been feeding on can help increase your prospective chances of increasing the number of bites your line gets. Spooning a catch to investigate its body contents will reveal what it has recently been feeding on.
One of the best ways to learn what trout are feeding on, and what you can use to attract them, is to spoon them and see what they have been eating. Once you have spooned a trout then you can take the appropriate measures to mimic their habitat and figure out which type of food they are looking for.
Something to keep in mind is that if a trout has had the food in its stomach for quite some time it will have contents within its stomach that is unrecognizable. However, if the fish has recently enjoyed a meal then the food inside of it will be easy to distinguish. This will allow you to identify things such as nymphs and buzzers and figure out which bait and colors will be best to use on any given day.
What you need to examine a trout’s eating habits is a marrow spoon. This will allow you to easily get inside the trout and extract the contents from within. Keep in mind that the contents at the end of the spoon will have been there the longest while the contents near the handle will end up being the last meal that the trout indulged on.
It is important to only spoon dead trout, as shoving a marrow spoon inside of a live trout is simply cruel and entirely inappropriate.
Now, let’s get right into how exactly you can spoon a trout.
Step 1
Grip onto the trout tightly and slowly slide the marrow spoon into the mouth of the trout and until you feel the stomach start to resist.
Step 2
Turn the spoon in a circle a number of times in order to scoop up the contents of the stomach.
Step 3
As slowly and gently as you inserted the spoon, withdraw it from the trout. Make sure that the spoon is right side up or else the contents will fall back and remain inside of the trout.
Step 4
Finally, you can examine the contents that the spoon has withdrawn from the trout. Dumping the contents of the marrow spoon into a glass of water is the best way to have an up close and personal look at what was inside of the trout. This will allow you to figure out what bait will work best in the area when fly fishing for trout and what colors to use when tying on buzzers, nymphs or other bait options that are at your disposal.
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