Do trout hug the bottom?
More than their reputation for rising suggests. In a stream, the water right along the bed is slowed by friction with the rocks, so a rainbow or brook trout resting its belly near the gravel spends a fraction of the energy of a fish a body-depth higher — and most of its food, the 80–90 percent taken underwater, drifts by at that level. That is why nymphs and egg patterns are fished dead-drifted near bottom. Lake trout do their own version: in summer, fish inside the cold 8–12 °C (46–54 °F) band often lie tight to bottom between feeding raids, which is why jigs and spoons worked from the bottom up are standard. The exceptions are the visible ones — rising stream fish, lakers chasing a jig 10 m (33 ft) up.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Movement & range
Same topic, other species
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