Northwest Fishing Reports

When I fish for trout I often use powerbait. Its produces alot of fish, but the only problem is that they swollow the hook 9 out of 10 times and I dont keep a fish unless its worth bragging about or if im in the mood for fish. I heard that if you leave a hook in a fish's mouth it will dissolve overtime. Is this true or not? If it is I'll just start cutting the line everytime, but if its not I guess I will just keep giving the fish to my grandma because if your hook gets swolled theres no way you can get it back without killing it.

It's hard to be a selective sportsman when dealing with hatchery fish plants. Most will not survive being released especially after swallowing a hook. When dealing with put-n-take cookie-cutter trout it's usually best to catch and keep until you hit your limit because of their inherently high mortality rate.

I just catch my limit and go. it seems if you even touch a trout it will die.

It is illegal to continue fishing with bait after catching 5 fish regardless if they were released or not. I think it's a pretty good rule...

While powerbait is a good way to catch trout, you could also switch up your setup to a lure or a jig and work the bottom with that....

Sam Kafelafish wrote:It is illegal to continue fishing with bait after catching 5 fish regardless if they were released or not. I think it's a pretty good rule...

While powerbait is a good way to catch trout, you could also switch up your setup to a lure or a jig and work the bottom with that....

Has anyone trolled powerbait dough? I remember doing this last summer and catching some nice fish! The only problem was, was that they took it so deep down their throats/stomachs.

Yes I also agree with the five fish rule, but I just dont want to keep the fish lol. I'm running out of room in the freezer.
So, I'm guessing that just cutting the line and losing my hook will harm the fish?
And yeah I troll powerbait at American Lake all the time during warmer weather. At first I thought it was a crazy idea, but its a very good method.

Awoods wrote:At first I thought it was a crazy idea, but its a very good method.

Yeah that's what I've come to find out. I also troll powerbait eggs down anywhere from 5-15 feet.

The thing with trolling power bait is keeping it on the hook while trolling. But if you tie up a wedding ring with one of those trebble hooks that has the spring wrapped around it, (I cant remeber what they are called). The power bait holds up pretty well. But rolling 2 power eggs and a piece of worm on a size 6 worm hook works pretty well too

kuttkilla wrote:

Awoods wrote:At first I thought it was a crazy idea, but its a very good method.

Yeah that's what I've come to find out. I also troll powerbait eggs down anywhere from 5-15 feet.

Ive only caught bows on this method though. Have you ever caught a cutt on this setup? I know nothing about cutthroats, so this might be a stupid question lol.

Awoods wrote:

kuttkilla wrote:

Awoods wrote:At first I thought it was a crazy idea, but its a very good method.

Yeah that's what I've come to find out. I also troll powerbait eggs down anywhere from 5-15 feet.

Ive only caught bows on this method though. Have you ever caught a cutt on this setup? I know nothing about cutthroats, so this might be a stupid question lol.

No I haven't and it is a waste of time. Some people I know get bows from shore using powerbait on LW for the cutties, but they are smart predators; they aren't going to go for some glob of farm dough if you get my drift. You want to immimate bait fish for the cutties and I use orange label herring almost exclusively when I have access to it...Joe's sells them in a nice 12-pack; the red label works well too, but make sure they are feeding on this larger bait before investing the time and effort in brining and purhasing red-label.