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Best PowerBait for Trout

​If you ever looked around a tackle shop and seen small jars of brightly colored dough then you may be confused as to how you might go about choosing one to use.

Choosing the best PowerBait for trout will depend on a number of factors:

• ​Type of water you are fishing
• Light and weather
• Stocked or wild fish
• ​Time of year

​PowerBait is made by Berkeley and over the past few decades they have continually refined both ingredients and the scent that goes into making it.

​Originally there was just the now famous PowerBait dough. Down through the years the range has evolved to include a number of other offerings – Dough, Salmon Eggs and Trout Nuggets.

They are available in a large range of colors so you should be able to match the light conditions with one of the options.

​Best PowerBait for Trout

​Like most things in fishing opinions vary as to what is the best PowerBait for trout. Look at any fisherman’s tackle box and you will see one guy favors the more natural looking colors whereas another will swear by the brighter artificial colors.

​Unfortunately there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to choosing which PowerBait you use. 

What works one day may not work the next. Every water is different and you’ll need to experiment. 

​1. Berkley PowerBait Dough

​Power Bait Dough is probably the ​best PowerBait for stocked trout. Freshly stocked rainbow trout absolutely love it.

As the name suggests it is a dough like substance which means it can be molded onto your hook with ease.

Berkley have released a small plastic mold that will give you a perfectly formed ball every time if you don’t want to do it by hand. 

As it is scented it will leave a slight odor on your hands so using the mold is one way to avoid this.

PowerBait can be used with very light gear. You can use nothing more than a hook and small lead weight to help cast and keep it on or near the bottom.

​Bouncing a small piece down a river where trout are feeding on salmon eggs can be almost as productive of using natural salmon eggs without all the mess.

It will keep for quite a few months once opened. However, if it does start to dry out it will be all but useless.

Overtime it will also loose it’s scent. Once this happens you are better off binning it and buying a replacement.

​2. PowerBait Eggs

​As stated above you can form the regular dough into an egg shape, but Berkley actually produce there own line of preformed eggs.

​Traditionally salmon eggs were collected by hand. In recent years they have been widely available to purchase in bait and tackle shops.

​These artificial eggs are even more convenient and have a pretty decent shelf life. The also come with the standard Berkley scent.

These eggs will float so you need to take that into account with how you fish and rig them.

Personally I use a small split shot about a foot or two from the hook depending on the depth of the river.

You can then bounce them downstream just like a real salmon egg would. The small weight will bounce down the river bottom whilst the egg will stay naturally suspended about a foot or two from the bottom.

​3. Trout Nuggets

​The Berkley Trout Nuggets are an almost identical match for the type of feed that trout are fed in a hatchery. 

They even have a specific color called “Hatchery”. The nuggets are a slightly​​ large more square shape than the eggs just like the specific pellets that hatchery owners use.

You can fish this just like the normal dough on light gear. A pretty simple setup is to thread one onto a small trout hook and cast it out without using weight.

You’ll find that rainbows will hit these on the surface providing you keep yourself as hidden as possible on the river bank.

The are not that effective for will brown trout and you might be better of sticking to the more popular trout lures for rivers and streams in that scenario.

​Best Color Powerbait for Trout

If you are fishing for rainbows that are new into the river or lake then you will want to use a bait that is as close as possible to what they were fed on in the hatchery.

Berkley Powerbait Hatchery Pellet Dough is an almost exact match for the pellets that a lot of trout are reared on before they are released into the wild.

If the river has salmon that are spawning in it every year then a red or orange color PowerBait is best used during that spawning season.

On smaller ponds and lakes I have found that chartreuse presented in a very natural way is one of the better colors to use.

​Fishing With PowerBait

​Just like fishing with any other kind of bait the most important aspect of fishing with PowerBait is to make sure that your presentation of the bait looks as natural as possible even for something so artificial as PowerBait.

Drifting PowerBait is one of the better ways to work it in a river or stream.

Try to only use a small weight that is heavy enough to keep the bait down but light enough to allow it to bounce down the river bottom using the natural power of the water flow.

​Always start from downstream of where you think the trout may be naturally hiding. Casting from below them means the are less likely to be spooked and it also allows the bait to run towards you.

​If it is moving downstream towards you then it will look a lot more natural.

On lakes you may need a heavier weight depending on how far you need to cast to get where the trout are usually holding.

Bobber fishing with a float for trout is another option to use on small ponds as it gives you the best possible visual feedback.

​PowerBait Setup

When using a small piece of PowerBait for trout you’ll need to use the right kind of tackle.

A heavy spinning or baitcasting setup is too be avoided. The best setup is an ​trout spinning rod and reel combo ​that is rated for light line.

​The rod should be between 6 and 7 feet in length depending on the type of water you are fishing. A longer rod will give you a longer casting distance but on smaller waters it will become more awkward to use.

So size your rod accordingly to the venue you intend to fish on.

You’ll need an ultralight power rating and a fast action. The fast action gives you a much higher starting point for where the rod bends on the blank. This type of action is excellent for casting light lures and getting lots of feedback through the rod helping to detect the smallest of bites.

​A good trout reel choice for the rod above is a size 1000 up to roughly a 2500 spinning reel. These smaller reels are great for casting light lines and should be well matched in terms of weight to an ultralight rod.

The go to fishing line choice will be monofilament. For very light setups you can use a 2 lb line and at the heavier end of the spectrum you can go up to 6 lb.