The Best Lures for Rainbow Trout

Use a 1/16 or 1/8 oz inline spinner — a Panther Martin or a Rooster Tail — and you will catch rainbow trout almost anywhere in the country. That is the direct answer to what lures to use for rainbow trout. Add a 1/4 oz Kastmaster for distance and depth and a soft-plastic grub for the days nothing will chase, and your box is finished.

Prices come live from the retailer with the date stamped under each buy button. These are selections based on published specifications and long-standing patterns in the category, not field tests we ran.

Four shapes catch rainbow trout

An inline spinner, for everything. A blade spinning around a straight wire is the most productive trout lure ever made, because it triggers a chase from a fish that is not actively feeding. In a creek, 80% of your rainbow trout will come on one.

A compact spoon, for distance and depth. Spoons weigh more per inch than spinners, so they go further, sink faster and hold in current better. That is what you want in a big pool, in wind, or in high spring water.

A soft-plastic grub, for pressure. When a stretch of creek has been fished hard — and anywhere near a stocking truck has been — a slow, small, soft bait outfishes anything with a blade. It looks like food rather than a threat.

A tiny crankbait, for the rare deep slow pool. It is the one shape we have not picked here, because on small water it is a specialist. If your creek has a long deep pool with no current, a small floating minnow is worth carrying.

The five lures, compared

What size lure for rainbow trout

1/16 oz is the small-creek size; 1/8 oz is the all-round size. Anything heavier on a shallow creek spends its life in the rocks. Anything lighter will not cast on standard ultralight gear unless the day is dead calm.

Match the lure to the rod, not to the fish. A 1/16 oz spinner needs a light or ultralight rod to cast properly — it simply will not load a medium-power rod. If your rod is rated 1/8 to 3/8 oz, fish the Kastmaster and leave the tiny spinners for a different setup. The rods are in the ultralight spinning rod roundup.

Scale up only in high water. After rain, when the creek is pushing and colored, a 1/4 oz spinner or spoon gets down and stays in front of the fish. The rest of the season, small wins.

Color, in order of importance

Blade finish first: gold in stained water, silver in clear. This is the only color rule that holds up. Gold reflects warmer light and shows up in tea-colored creek water; silver flashes hardest in clear, bright conditions.

Body color second, and it mostly matters to you. Black-and-yellow and brown-and-gold are the classics, and a rainbow in a creek is reacting to flash, vibration and silhouette long before it reads the paint. Buy a kit, fish what is tied on, and change lure shape before you change color.

Add one pink or chartreuse lure for stocked water. Hatchery rainbows respond to bright unnatural colors in a way wild fish generally do not — probably because they were raised on pellets. It is worth owning one.

How to fish each one in a creek

Spinners: cast upstream, retrieve slightly faster than the current. The blade only has to turn — a slow retrieve that keeps the lure just off the bottom draws more strikes than a fast one. Work the head of the pool first, then the seam, then the tail.

Spoons: cast across and let it sink on a tight line. Count the sink. Most rainbow takes on a spoon come as it falls, and if your line is slack you will never feel them.

Soft plastics: as slowly as you can stand. Under a small float in a pool, or a straight crawl along the bottom. If it feels too slow, it is probably right. The bait-fishing alternative — and when it is the better choice — is in the best trout bait guide.

Stocked rainbows are a different fish

For the first week they will eat anything; after that they get hard. Fresh stockers chase bright spinners aggressively. Two weeks later the survivors have been caught and released twice and they want something small, slow and quiet — which is when the Trout Magnet earns its place in the box.

Wild creek rainbows are spookier but less picky. They have seen fewer lures and more herons, so the approach matters more than the pattern: stay low, fish upstream, and keep your shadow off the water. If you would rather fish flies for them, the patterns are in the best flies for rainbow trout.

And the wider lure box is worth building out slowly. The creek-specific selection is in the best creek fishing lures, the lake versions are in trout lures for lakes, and the general ranking is in the best trout lures roundup. The spinner category on its own — weights, blade geometry and spinner versus spoon — is in the best trout spinners.