The fish of 1000 casts? Not necessarily! If you take these 10 rules for sea trout fishing to heart, you will significantly improve your chances on your next visit to the Baltic Sea.
The silver of the Baltic Sea is in the palm of your hand – persevering with sea trout fishing in wind, waves and lousy temperatures has paid off! Photo: F. Pippardt
It is a mystery for many anglers, hardly any fish fascinates in this country as much as the thick, blank sea trout. But this type of fish is also unsettling. If sea trout anglers want to be successful in the long run and not just by chance, they have to present the right bait at the right place at the right time – and that in a huge body of water. Interestingly, it is the lures used for sea trout fishing that raise many questions:
But in the end almost always the same answers follow. The bait does not play the biggest role, other things are more important first and foremost. If you know about these rules, it’s not that hard to get the silver fighters on the line and bring them to the beach.
How to successfully catch sea trout: The ten best tips
Rule 1: Have stamina!
There are actually no rules for sea trout fishing. If anything, only these: Only bait in the water can catch a fish. What sounds banal has its deeper meaning.
The rods are guaranteed not to catch anything. The motto is clear … Photo: Archive
Especially beginners come to sea trout fishing with a concentrated load of confidence to the water, can hardly wait to finally wet the brand-new waders and go to work with a frightening energy. However, usually not very long. After an hour of repetitive casting and cranking the first despair sets in. My God, such a large expanse of water and me here with my tiny rod and the even tinier lure.
How can a sea trout find the lure in this huge sea??
Looking along the coast, an angler’s courage may fail – a lot of water and relatively few trout. Pulling through is the order of the day! Photo: BLINKER
Maybe first drink a cup of coffee with your colleague and chat a bit. And here it goes, the dangerous sea trout idleness to which even old coastal hares still succumb far too often. On the beach then, on a comfortable stone the first doubts about the conditions: The water is quite deep… Has anyone ever heard that fish bite well at low tide? Just!
Rule 2: Few baits are enough!
The bait does not matter in principle. Sea trout are even caught with Effzett lures and spinners. Important: Trust your lure. Only if you believe in the wobbler or flasher, you will be able to guide it with feeling all the time while sea trout fishing.
Whether it’s a run-through, a regular lure or a plug, it’s more important than color or make that you know and trust your lure! Here the angler knew exactly at which speed the slim sand eel runs best and how long the spinning stop may be – The blank 62er liked that quite well. Photo: A. Lohse
Rule 3: Get information!
Do not go to the water somewhere where the father of one of your friend’s uncles has had beastly fishing luck at one time or another. The good and catchable spots on the coast often change from week to week and certainly from season to season!
Seek advice from specialist dealers from the coast. They know on which beaches something is currently going on. Photo: BLINKER
Rule 4: Be tougher than the weather!
Don’t be afraid! There is no good or bad sea trout weather. There is only comfortable fishing weather with a light breeze from the south and pleasant 15 degrees air temperature and the other way around uncomfortable fishing weather with rain and storm from the west and murky water in front of your feet.
Whether storm, continuous rain or even snow – the trout are on the hunt in all conditions. We should also follow this advice. Here in the pouring rain a fat trout took the streamer. Photo: J. Jasper
Rule 5: Search shallow water!
Even if anglers like to believe it: The fish are not always just below the horizon. On the contrary, sea trout often hunt so close to shore that they have hardly any water left under their bellies. Therefore, never rush into the water like a madman until the wave sloshes under your armpit. The first casts in sea trout fishing should be made on dry feet. On many days the successful mefoangler enters the water only to land the fish. Of course only where it is possible without too many hangers, if we have a kelp belt in front of us, we have to wade at least up to it.
Don’t always wade straight to the horizon. Often the trout rob close under land in the first channel. Photo: BLINKER
Rule 6: Variety in casting
It goes with rule 5. Don’t stubbornly thrash your bait straight out into the distance all day long. Fan casts, even shorter ones, in a semicircle around you, increase the chances of contact. If you are standing on a sandbank with deeper water behind you, take a chance and cast behind you. Maybe a 60 mm trout is passing behind you and you can surprise it in this way. A lot of fish are caught by casting parallel to the shore – but only rarely do you see anglers doing this.
A cast towards the shore brought this magnificent trout to the fly. Photo: K. Lohse
Rule 7: Top months for sea trout fishing are March and April
The absolute best coastal months for sea trout on Germany’s coasts are March and April. There the mouse bites now times no thread off. If the air temperatures are mostly far below zero degrees during March, the real season often starts with a bang at the beginning of April. From a water temperature of six degrees you can count on good fishing. But also in February many and just big mefos come to the shore. Just in the east it goes on mild February days properly to the thing.
If you find a shoal of Greenlanders, you should stay on the ball. Here it really paid off – three Gronis of the 50er class. Photo: J.Jasper
Rule 8: The right tackle!
For sea trout fishing on the coast, the equipment question is answered quite simply; spinning rod, three meters long, casting weight from 10 to 40 grams, semi-parabolic or parabolic action. Reel: good stationary reel in 3000 or 4000 size. For both you don’t have to dig deep into your pocket, but especially the reel has to withstand a lot. Salt and continuous cranking will otherwise quickly take their toll! Whether you fish braided or monofilament is a matter of personal taste. Many sea trout anglers fear more dropouts with braid. I switched from monofilament to braided and can’t share these worries anymore. Fish with the same line you normally use for spin fishing. With braid, however, a monofilament striking line is recommended. On the one hand because of its relative transparency, on the other hand because of the stretch, which helps with the hard strokes of a wild trout in the drill. The proper connecting knot for a long strike line is the FG knot.
A 3 meter long rod with parabolic or semi-parabolic action allows pleasant casting and fishing on the shoreline. Photo:BLINKER/J. Bass
Rule 9: Don’t forget a fly even when fishing for sea trout!
Whoever owns a fly rod of the classes 6, 7 or 8 and knows how to handle it a little, should always take it with him to the coast. Because there are days, on which you turn with spinning lures a wolf and catch nevertheless nothing. That’s when the fly often strikes. Fish light-hearted and lightly weighted streamers of size 4 to 8 (Wooly Bugger, all kinds of shrimp imitations). A floating line or intermediate is the best choice. Think also of 50 meters Backing, because it is not always smaller trout, which spoon in the Streamer. If you can’t fly rod, reach for sbirulino and fly. This is also a great combo on sea trout. Michael Werner from FliegenFischen Magazin introduces you to a simple but enormously catchable fly pattern in this article: the pan filler!
On some days the fly is superior to the flasher, good for the one who has such a well filled fly box with him then. Photo: J.Radtke
Rule 10: Stay a connoisseur!
Enjoy even the days when you don’t catch anything (those will come, for sure). Fresh sea air is healthy, fishing is relaxing and the great sea trout goddess has some beautiful silver treasures in store for every hardworking inshore angler if we prove ourselves worthy of them.
Fishing days on the coast are (almost) always relaxing and (often) exciting: it is a special fascination to stand in the sea with the relatively light spinning rod and fish for silver treasures.
Conclusion sea trout fishing
It’s not that hard to get the silver on the hook. If you take these 10 tips for sea trout fishing to heart, sooner or later you will have one of the silver torpedoes in your hands!