Trout Season Is Here! The San Diego Trout Masters Check In. Stan Kaplun Reports

Cousins Pro Staff: Stan Kaplun

For us San Diegans, the weather has gotten colder, while the trout fishing has gotten better. All of the local lakes have been stocking either Nebraska Tail Walkers or Sierra Bows, with weekly and bi-weekly scheduled plants for the next four months. The water has dropped to a temperature where it's cold enough for the trout to survive. This has allowed for the lake management to seemingly have enough confidence in that the trout will be in a good position to acclimate to the new water. Because of this, they've finally begun to stock the larger trophy models.

With 2015 having came to a close and we start 2016, here is a quick recap of some of the better catches that me and my buddies have made thus far in the season as well as the equipment and lures we put to use.

Old favorites: Thomas Buoyant and Panther Martin

When targeting these stocked rainbows, there are different ways to approach them, in regards to using different baits, both live and artificial. Aside from your standard salmon egg set up, Powerbait set up, night crawler set up, and even a combination of the last two, you can also fish for them with soft baits, spoons and spinner baits, as well as hard baits and hand tied flies. The soft baits mainly consist of mini jigs, trout worms on a jig head, drop-shot a variety of soft baits, or a Carolina rigged Mice Tail. The spoons and spinner baits include Rooster Tails, Panther Martins, Kastmasters, Thomas Buoyants, and Phoebes. When it comes to hard baits, there are all types of micro jerks baits and micro crankbaits made by various companies. Hand tied flies have obviously been nothing short of essential in a fly-fisherman's arsenal, but they are starting to catch on with local trout anglers as well.

Small crankbaits will play a major role if the waters muddy, keep that in mind.

Kevin Bridge in action, displaying the BFS style with his Abu Garcia Revo LTZ

Kevin Bridge with a 6lb trout and 4.6lb trout

An ideal set up would be one that maximizes casting distance, keeps line visibility to a minimum for these extremely line shy trout, and has high control of micro baits. This would be an ultra light rod, a size 500 or 1000 spinning reel, spooled with 2lb to 4lb mono or fluoro. The rod length depends on personal preference, ranging from 5' and exceeding 8'. Cousins Tackle has a great selection of trout rods. They have quality two piece graphite rods in the Raze series, as well as the T-300 Graphite series. They also have a fiberglass selection in the Smooth Glass series. My preferred trout rod is a RSP 651, a two piece medium fast ultra light, paired with a Shimano Sienna 500, and 2lb fluoro.

Eric Remmer with a nice limit and the big fish @ 6.6 

Eric Remmer with another beauty

Eric Remmer

While I stand by what I said above in describing my ideal trout set up, I would like to add that Kevin Bridge, Mike Tran, and Barney have brought about an effective way of targeting trout with the same micro baits but on a bait casting outfit instead of spinning. They use an Abu Garcia Revo LTZ spooled with 2lb or 4lb test on a short ultra light rod.

Alec Roberson

Alec Roberson limit

Alex Two Fisting Bows

Mike Tran with a very nice 3.8 lber 

Cousins RSP 651 and a Shimano Sienna 500

Below, Barney uses a Shimano Aldebarian, also a bait casting reel that truly allows you to throw micro baits. In addition to that, he also custom modifies his rods to a length that is ideal for this type of fishing. You can find out more about this new style known as BFS, in the previous trout report on thebbz.com.

Barney showing off his catch

Barney's custom rod set up.

Barney's Catch with his custom setup. Great looking 20" 4.8 lb beauty

Stan Kaplun

From myself and the rest of the BBZ team, I hope everyone had a happy holidays and tight lines to all as we move forward to a great year with many big fish in 2016!

Stay tuned for more -Stan Kaplun-