Dough Bait Tips for Trout Fishing

Most trout anglers are familiar with dough baits such as Berkley's PowerBait.  These baits are specially formulated to attract trout and the nicest thing about them is that they float ... which helps to keep your bait off the bottom of a lake bed.

Dough baits are especially effective when fishing lakes stocked with rainbow trout.  That's because these baits are similar to the food fed to hatchery trout.  While Berkley has it's competitors in the dough bait business, I've had the best luck with Berkley products.  So I personally tend to stick with them.  Rainbow glitter powerbait is one of my favorites! 

Fishing with dough bait is really easy.  I typically use 6-lb test line with a 4 or 2-lb leader.  Between the two, I attached an slip sinker on the 6-lb test line and then tie on a snap-swivel.  I attach my leader (typically 18-24 inches) to the swivel.  At the end of the leader is a treble hook (usually size 12).  This rig is typically a bottom fishing rig. Using powerbait on this rig gets the baited hook off the bottom of the lake (making it more visible to trout swimming by). However, I have had success using the same rig (minus the sinker) when fish are feeding off the surface.

When baiting the hook, most anglers just make a ball around the hook to cover it up.  And while that does work, the video below offers a few more tips.

Another thing I like to do sometimes (especially when fishing is slow) is grease my leader and dough bait with trout attractant. The advantage of this trick is that the trout attractant can help disguise human smells transferred to my line and bait while handling them.

For roe bait tips for steelhead trout, click here.

Have any more dough bait secrets?  Feel free share them here!

Trout Berry Dough Bait Press

Tired of the mess dough baits (such as PowerBait) leave on your hands? If you answered yes, then you may like the Trout Berry Dough Bait Press. This little gadget is designed to get perfect balls of dough bait on your hook, and not on your hands.

For folks who don't like getting their hands messy, this is a handy little fishing gadget. But it does serve another important function as well.

One of the primary concerns of anglers is not to transfer unwanted odors from their hands to their baits, knowing that these human odors can turn fish off. Sunblock, lotion, and bug sprays are some of the odors that anglers may have on their hands when fishing. While these things are necessary to protect anglers, they can be inadvertently transferred to your bait while handling it - which can then turn fish off.

This is where the Trout Berry Dough Press can help. This gadget eliminates the need for you to touch the bait, thereby keeping you from transferring unwanted odors to your bait. If your bait smells "fishy", it will smell more natural to fish.

Watch the Trout Berry Demonstration video to see how it works.

The Trout Berry Dough Bait Press has also recently been reviewed by Salmon, Trout, Steelheader magazine. You can read the review by clicking here.