Spinners, spoons, or flies — when should I throw which?
Match the tool to visibility, water type, and species. Spinners excel where the lateral line does the finding: stained water, broken pocket water, brook trout streams, and freshly stocked fish — the blade's thump calls fish that cannot see far, and covers water fast. Spoons cast farther and run deeper, making them the shore tool for lakes: ice-out lake trout, cruising rainbows, and trolling. Flies win where trout are eating insects and inspecting closely — slow clear pools, hatches, pressured water — because nothing else imitates a size-16 mayfly. An honest simplification: fish spinners to find fish, spoons to reach fish, flies to fool fish; carrying two of the three covers almost every trout day.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about What this means for fishing
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Same topic, other species
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- What is the single best perch rig, and why does it work? — Yellow Perch
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