Streamlined shadows slide through the shallows during low-light periods under the ice. When the ice breaks up, the pattern stocked and naturalized trout have followed for months continues unabated. Things begin to change, for rainbows, as the spawning period approaches. (Brown and brook trout spawn in fall.) The insect hatches begin. Then the water warms. In a nutshell, those are the three most significant events for trout fishermen to consider when approaching lakes from ice-out through early summer.

Each event or stage in seasonal progression brings with it a distinct change in the behavioral patterns trout follow. These changes are easily defined and recognized, and as certain coast-to-coast as the next sunrise. Water temperatures tend to quickly approach 40°F at ice-out, the lengthening days and sudden sunlight on the water causing the surface to mix with the dense 39°F layer that has been at the bottom of the water column all winter. Cold fronts can begin to reverse that process, and temperatures as low as 34°F might be found after boats can be launched, but 40°F or close tends to be the norm right after ice-out—which means rainbow trout are already preparing to spawn, and entering the first major pattern of the three-stage process.

Stage One

Stocked rainbows return to the stocking site at this point, looking for their ancestral river, which is up to 2,000 miles away and probably on the wrong side of the Rockies. Naturalized rainbows, born into the lake system through successful spawning activity, might begin staging near creek mouths or might already be running up larger streams that enter the lake. Browns and brookies continue doing what they did under the ice, cruising the same shallow flats looking for food. Forage, at this point, tends to be made up of small minnows (if still available) or invertebrates like mayfly nymphs and caddisfly larvae. The best fishing tends to occur between the bank and depths of 6 to 8 feet.

Matt Smiley works for Eagle Claw, but when not in the office he’s chasing something with fins, usually a trout because he lives in Colorado. (He once held the record for the biggest gamefish of any kind ever caught in Colorado, a 44-pound 5-ounce laker; but I told him that fish was too big and ostentatious for us to mention.) On trout lakes, Smiley applies different methods during each of the four stages trout go through between ice-out and early summer. “Fly, spin, troll, or bait,” he says. “Whatever it takes.

“Ice-out is the best time for tagging a trophy trout from shore. The window lasts for two or three weeks. Rock-face dams, rocky flats, and rock points are best, and bait is hard to beat at ice-out,” Smiley says. “Nothing is hatching yet. Spinning gear, using salmon eggs on bottom in netting [spawn bags], is probably the odds-on favorite. Nitro Premium Dough works almost as well. Side by side, with the folks using salmon eggs, it’s almost 50-50. Nitro Premium is certainly effective enough to use if you can’t procure salmon eggs and in some cases it excels. Salmon eggs can get lost down on bottom in rock cover or detritus, though trout pick them up off a clean bottom. Nitro Premium Dough floats, keeping the bait up where the fish can see it. It also can be added to spawn bags, creating a floating presentation with twice the appeal.

“Typically you want to use just enough Nitro to cover the hook or to float a spawn bag,” he says. “Some guys get a little out of control with it and use too much. A ball of Nitro should be barely larger than a real salmon egg, most days. Orange, salmon-egg pink, and rainbow swirl patterns are the hottest selling versions of Nitro Premium.

“The rigging is nothing fancy. In clear water, a 2- or 3-foot fluorocarbon leader testing 4 to 6 pounds, tied to a small black or non-reflective barrel swivel is key. Trout are line-shy and suspicious of everything. A sliding egg sinker goes on the 6- to 8-pound mainline above the swivel. Eagle Claw sells egg sinkers, too, and I use a 1/16-ounce version on flat-calm days but might go up to a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce sinker on really windy days. At the end of the leader, tie on a size #8 Eagle Claw 141 hook and you’re in business. A lot of people use hooks and line too big for the job. Use the smallest, lightest example of everything that you can get away with.

“Location is simple for rainbows. The biggest fish in stocked lakes are broodstock and holdovers. Every year they come back to the boat ramp where they were originally stocked, following a false spawning urge,” says Smiley. Of course, lakes where natural reproduction occurs tend to have a stream or two running in, though some rainbows like the Kamloops variety can spawn in lakes. All rainbows, however, gather or stage near stream mouths in early spring.

Brookies and brown trout continue using shallow flats. In lakes without many shallow flats, the biggest flats become key spots. In a lake with lots of them, the key spots tend to be near creek mouths or along shorelines where there’s seepage from an adjacent wetland.

“Cruisers can be located visually, too,” Smiley points out. “They can be approached by spin-fishing with ultralight tubes and marabou jigs scented with Nitro Gravy, giving them something to key on.” The presentation has to be slow, which means trout have time to get a good whiff. If they smell L-serine, a natural amino acid on your hands that repels trout, it’s adios el trouto.

“Fly-fishing can be effective at ice-off, too,” he says. “We’re imitating trout or salmon eggs with patterns like nuclear eggs, crystal-flash eggs. Bunny-strip leeches work, too—anything slow. Rainbows pretend they’re spawning until the water is just over 40°F,” he adds. “A brief window opens for success with floating Rapalas and Husky Jerks, but when the water hits 50°F, insect hatches start to become prolific. That’s when baitfishing from shore really tapers off, because trout are so focused on the insect activity.”

Stage Two

“The ability of shore fishermen to match a stonefly, calibaettis or caddis hatch begins to determine how well they do at this point,” says Smiley. “Even stocked trout can be highly selective. After a stocked trout has been in the system a year, it’s hard to tell it from a wild trout, as far as feeding tendencies are concerned. You can catch stocked trout during hatches with hardbaits like Rapalas. Bigger trout, especially, are meat-eaters. Tube jigs and Rapalas are best just before and right after a major hatch. When those bugs start to move, we stop getting hookups on hard gear. You can see the transition, because the hardbait bite begins to slow and always eventually dies.

“Before a bug hatch, trout are opportunistic,” he continues. “During a major hatch, even the biggest fish in the system can be feeding selectively on something tiny like a #16 chironomid. If nothing is written about the hatches in the lake, you have to collect, identify, and tie or buy imitations on your own. Hatches take place on shallow flats and typically are most pronounced around the lake’s biggest weedbeds. Look for rising trout and sight-fish for them with a floating, double-tapered line and a light flyrod appropriate for conditions. A 4-weight is fine on a calm day, and most hatches occur when the water is pretty flat. A 7-weight might be necessary on windy days. Look for rises, or cast to cruising trout you can see. It’s the best time to use a flyrod, because you can perfectly measure distances and get the fly back to the same key spots trout are passing through.

“Bugs can just explode out of those weedbeds. With billions of bugs in the air around you, it’s easy to see why trout become selective and refuse anything else. Feeding is easy and food plentiful, even though the individual forage items are very small. Match the hatching insects correctly and you’re in for the best fishing for numbers the lake produces all year. But when the surface hits 70°F in summer, fly-fishing tapers off dramatically.”

Stage Three

A thermocline (a sharp division between upper and lower temperature layers of a water column) develops in most lakes as water approaches 70°F. The formation can be accelerated in calm weather or delayed by high winds, but only those lakes that retain good oxygen levels below the thermocline in summer can maintain stocked trout year-round, as a general rule. Shallow, spring-fed lakes with no thermocline can maintain populations of wild brook trout or self-sustaining populations of brown trout or rainbows, but trout can’t survive long in 70°F water. Stocked trout in lakes can utilize the surface and top layer of the water column in fall, winter, and spring, but rarely in summer, where waters broach the 70°F mark. Trout may cruise shallow for short periods in 70°F water, but rarely in daytime.

Thermoclines tend to measure about 10 feet, top to bottom, and represent a rapid change in temperature and density that divides upper and lower layers of a lake until Fall Turnover, or until a big storm mixes things up. They can be located with temperature gauges on downriggers or with depth-finders. With the gain turned up, thermoclines become a visual band on the screen, somewhere near the upper middle of the water column. Depending on the lake, they can develop at depths ranging from 18 to 35 feet or deeper. In the Great Lakes, it’s not uncommon to find them deeper than 50 feet. Thermoclines are not static, bulging downward on windward shores, while bending upward on the lee side of the lake.

Just as thermoclines develop, those places where they intersect bottom on good structure can be prime for trout. The same kind of bottom rig and baits described in Stage One can be deployed, though a lively crawler becomes hard to beat. Hover a boat, drift slowly, or anchor just inside the intersection of the bottom and the thermocline on humps, points, or sunken islands. When the intersection is deeper than 20 feet, fishing vertically with tubes or backtrolling slowly along the intersection using jigs tipped with action-tail grubs can be highly effective, especially on windy days.

But the primary tactic for Stage Three quickly becomes trolling. Trout enter a suspending stage within a week or so of the development of thermoclines. “At that point, get the depth-finder out and look at the deeper sections of the lake,” Smiley says. “A depth-finder helps a lot, because you locate the trout at 20 feet some days and 40 feet the next. In summer, they might be using the top or the bottom of the thermocline, but they’re generally somewhere near it.

“Most of the year when I’m trolling, I put 60 feet of 6- to 8-pound line behind the boat and pull a floating Rapala,” he adds. “I might use a split shot or two to take it a little deeper, and in-line trolling boards can be very effective for dragging the lures out away from the boat path. But in summer you need downriggers or diver-planers to get the lures down there. Minnowbaits and smaller banana baits, like the Luhr Jensen Kwikfish, are my favorites. Get them running at the depths where you’re marking fish and it shouldn’t take too long.

“Summer isn’t the best time to fish trout, because they’re stressed and forced deep. Most fish,” he notes, “even stream trout, are the opposite—stressed in winter and building weight all summer. But trout in lakes can be turned off for long periods in summer. Keep playing with color, style, and size until something encourages a reaction.”

Following this three-stage process could be the ultimate test of maturity. A 13-year-old gets a tent, a flyrod, a spinning rod, and a duck boat and won’t be allowed to return home until he or she has caught trout on bait, flies, and lures. (That’ll teach ’em.)