Mike wrote:
Much of this discussion has been rather moot in my view since my experiences and those described to me have been that spawning wild trout, at least Brown Trout, unlike male bass on their nests, have very little inclination to hit, if at all. The fish don't have to be wild either. When Kettle used to be stocked in the open area in fall, one would run into spawning recently stocked fish at times and they wanted nothing to do with presentations of minnows or lures. Meanwhile, other stocked fish from those batches that were not quite in spawning mode would hit, but were very finicky. Finding fish starting to spawn meant others were probably close and this was always disappointing because it meant fishing was going to be tough. When Logan Branch used to hold an abundance of trophy trout, spawning did not increase their vulnerability to legal fishing methods.
