Trout Diet

Trout Food

As I mentioned in my article on basic casting, the best fly caster in the world will rarely catch a fish if he isn’t presenting to the trout the right fly.  What is the right fly?  Well, that changes throughout the day and throughout the seasons.  So, a basic understanding of how trout feed and stream side entomology can help you learn to pick the right fly.  After all, the difference between the right fly and the wrong fly is the difference between catching and fishing.

Midges, Midges, Midges...  These prolific flies can make up more than 50% of all aquatic insects in any given freshwater ecosystem.  Understanding their life cycle and their importance to the trout diet is vital for fly fishing.  When a midge hatch is the only thing happening, you will be thankful for having the right fly in your fly box.   This article will discuss chironomids and their life cycle.

If you are lucky enough to be fly fishing during a stonefly hatch, then you know that nothing else will satisfy a hungry trout.  Even larger trout that might normally ignore aquatic insects will zero in on these huge bugs.  The stoneflies simply are too large and too nutrient rich for large trout to ignore.  The key, like in all fly fishing situations, is knowing the water you are going to fish and having flies in a variety of sizes and colors to match the naturals.

As you probably already know, the Caddis is a vital source of nutrition for trout.  They are not nearly as prolific as mayflies and midges, but trout seem to key in on them when they are there.  I have found that when there are swarms of midges along with a nice mayfly hatch, a caddis imitation can still generate the most strikes from hungry trout.