Flies & Creek Lures for Stream Trout

Tackle shops make their margin on the wall of flies, and it is the easiest place in this sport to spend two hundred dollars on things you will never tie on. The truth is unglamorous: a small number of patterns, in a couple of sizes, catches the overwhelming majority of creek trout in North America. What matters far more than pattern is size, depth and whether your drift looks natural.

If you are fishing spinning gear, start with the best creek fishing lures. If you are fishing a fly rod, start with the best trout flies for beginners. And if you are genuinely unsure which approach suits your water, the fly rod vs spinning rod comparison is the honest version of that argument.

Hardware: three lure types cover a creek

The inline spinner is the king of creek lures, and it is not close. A 1/16 or 1/8 ounce spinner cast upstream and retrieved just faster than the current puts flash and vibration in front of a trout that cannot resist investigating. It fishes at any depth, works in colored water, and a trout that misses it will often come back. If you buy one thing to fish a creek with, buy a handful of small spinners in silver, gold and a dark pattern.

Small minnow plugs — the 1 to 2 inch sinking or floating minnow — imitate the baitfish and small trout that bigger stream trout actually eat. They shine in the deeper pools and undercut banks where the larger fish in a creek live, and they are the best way to target a specific good fish rather than cover water.

Soft plastics and micro jigs are the quiet, deadly option when the water is cold, low and clear and the fish will not chase. A tiny grub on a 1/64 ounce head, drifted naturally through a pool, catches trout that have ignored everything with a blade on it.

Flies: the honest short list

You can fish creeks all season with three categories. Nymphs— a bead-head Hare’s Ear and a Pheasant Tail in sizes 14 to 18 — are what trout eat most of the time, because insects spend most of their lives underwater. Dry flies — an Elk Hair Caddis, a Parachute Adams and a small attractor in 14 to 18 — are how you fish the surface, and on a small stream dry-fly fishing is frequently the easiest way to catch, because creek trout are opportunists looking up. Streamers — the Woolly Bugger in olive or black, size 8 to 12 — imitate anything swimming and will take the biggest fish in a creek.

That is six patterns. An assortment box is the efficient way to get them, and a sensible assortment of reasonable hooks genuinely does the job on wild creek fish; this is not the place to spend money first. Where cheap assortments fail is hook quality on larger patterns and the inevitable duplication of flies nobody uses, which is why pairing an assortment with a handful of specifically chosen patterns is the sensible route.

Size, depth and drift beat pattern choice

Go smaller than you think.The most common correction an experienced angler makes to a beginner’s box is dropping two hook sizes. Creek insects are small, and a size 18 nymph will out-fish a size 12 on most days of the year.

Get to the right depth. Trout hold low and feed in the bottom third of the water column far more than at the surface. If you are not occasionally ticking the streambed with a nymph, you are fishing above the fish — add weight rather than changing fly.

Drag kills more drifts than pattern ever will. A fly or lure that is being pulled unnaturally across the current by your line is a fly trout ignore. Short casts, a high rod tip and a willingness to get closer to the fish — which small water lets you do — solve this better than anything you can buy.

Keep the whole lot in a waterproof box in a sling pack or vest, and if you are assembling a first kit from scratch the beginner gear guide lists what goes in it and in what order to buy.

Two pages added to this hub since launch: the best fly tying vises if you are moving from buying flies to tying them, and trout fishing gifts if you are buying this kind of tackle for somebody else.

Added to this hub on 2026-10-13: two species-specific lists — flies for brook trout and flies for rainbow trout, which need genuinely different boxes — plus the best cheap flies for anyone working out what the budget assortments actually cost per fish.

Added to this hub on 2026-10-13: the best nymphs for trout — the subsurface half of the box, and the flies that catch creek fish on the many days when nothing is rising.

Added to this hub on 2026-10-17: the best dry flies for trout, the surface half of the same box; the best streamers for trout for the days you want the biggest fish in the pool rather than the most; and the best trout spinners for anyone fishing a creek with a spinning rod instead.

Newest in this hub: the best summer trout flies, built around the terrestrials that creek trout eat once the hatches go quiet; what size flies to use for trout, which decodes hook numbering and names the sizes worth owning; and flies vs lures for creek trout — the honest comparison for anyone deciding which kind of tackle to buy first.