How good is a trout's sense of smell?

Elite — salmonids own one of the most sensitive olfactory systems in freshwater. This is the family whose sea-run members smell their way back to the exact natal gravel bed after years in the ocean, and rainbow, brook, and lake trout carry the same hardware, detecting some amino acids at parts-per-billion concentrations. In fishing terms: they smell prey, they smell each other's alarm substances, and they absolutely smell what your hands left on the lure. Scent matters most on slow presentations (bait, jigs soaked in a laker's face) and least on a spinner cranked past at speed.

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