Rainbow Trout Help

[Kris]

Can someone help me with a Rainbow Trout pattern / colors?

Don't see to many Rainbow Trout here in Louisiana

Someone wants me to paint them a Rainbow Trout and I want to make sure its done right.

Any suggestions and especially pics of painted trout baits anyone has done would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[genekickinit]

Can someone help me with a Rainbow Trout pattern / colors?

Don't see to many Rainbow Trout here in Louisiana

Someone wants me to paint them a Rainbow Trout and I want to make sure its done right.

Any suggestions and especially pics of painted trout baits anyone has done would be appreciated.

Thanks.

try---- http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/trout/ has rainbow trout pics.

Also WWW.MUSKYSNAX.COM will have great sideviews of the swimbaits they sell. Also perch & smallies.....

[motomania]

I kinda like www.oscarbassbaits.com rainbow trout pattern. Looks pretty straightforward, but still a great looking bait.

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I tried replicating rapalas, and it came out so-so; but it was a bit complicated.

Edited March 21, 2010 by motomania

[hazmail]

Can someone help me with a Rainbow Trout pattern / colors?

Don't see to many Rainbow Trout here in Louisiana

Someone wants me to paint them a Rainbow Trout and I want to make sure its done right.

Any suggestions and especially pics of painted trout baits anyone has done would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Kris- try misting a blue horizontal line along the bait then mist a red one parallel to and overlapping the blue, this will give you the red/blue/purple- get some scale pattern gauze and spray a light coat of 'silver pearl' over the lot including the belly,(this mutes the blue /red/ purples) ---Spray the back with some opaque black or green and you may be impressed.

Takes a bit of practice, so maybe try spraying a small diameter white PVC pipe with a few patterns first.

Pete

[Tom in Sweetwater]

Here's my rainbow pattern. Pearl white basecoat, gold candy on the upper half, medium green faded on top of the gold, light salmon colored stripe, and a billion little dark green dots.

[Piscivorous Pike]

Can someone help me with a Rainbow Trout pattern / colors?

Don't see to many Rainbow Trout here in Louisiana

Someone wants me to paint them a Rainbow Trout and I want to make sure its done right.

Any suggestions and especially pics of painted trout baits anyone has done would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Depends on what you want to achieve. Rainbows is a general catagory. They come in sea run, (steelhead), large lake and river and head water stream and a domestic strain for stocking, a domestic strain for food farming, a whole bunch of subspecies. Therefore the colors vary from chrome to the classical rainbow and some so brilliantly colored to almost be golden trout subspecies. The small redband, a subspecies, always retains the juvenile par marks. *(I can tell you the story how I ate the world record Yaak river redband subspecies[i do have a picture of it]!) That is another thing, parr marks. Small trouts the size of your lures generally are juvenile and all juvenile Onchorynchus sp. have deep dark, usually dark blue parr marks on the sides. When Rapala introduced their rainbow trout in the '70's they were the first to recognize that fact and to make the lure a juvenile trout, and it worked. Rapala choose to emphasize the trigger for most natural trout predators, the parr marks, for that reason the other colors where secondary in their pattern and to this day it is a very successful paint job. Most lures I see are painted in adult schemes and that is an incorrect color scheme for the size of the lure. Most commercial lures are painted this way, for the fisherman and not the fish.

If you are making a swim bait to imitate the stockers for a bass lure then a chrome fish, peppered with black dots and a pink band is the correct sub species, they are adults at 8 inches and typically are a derivative of a central California strain.

Here is a scientific identification key on line, I often use it. You can look up the correct colors here for the species and location, it is a technical piece.

http://www.fishbase.org/home.htm

I am so happy to see someone take the time and research this difficult question with a dedication to do it correctly. The old adage, match the hatch... applies here too. If you can figure out what type of rainbow is being eaten in the system you intend to fish then copy that one.

Great question, good luck with your quest.

Edited March 22, 2010 by Piscivorous Pike

[gunnie3035]

This is how I paint my 'bows; pearl white after the primer, gill red stripe + gill plates, thin blue line under red line & along jaw line, a slight misting of brown around the eye and gill plate, violet above red line slightly blending the red/blue/violet lines together. Blend the head an gill plate with violet. Hit the whole bait with a shimmering gold mist [not the belly]. And you can paint the back whatever color you choose. On the baits below all I changed was the top color. Use dots of different sizes.

[hazmail]

Depends on what you want to achieve. Rainbows is a general catagory. They come in sea run, (steelhead), large lake and river and head water stream and a domestic strain for stocking, a domestic strain for food farming, a whole bunch of subspecies. Therefore the colors vary from chrome to the classical rainbow and some so brilliantly colored to almost be golden trout subspecies. The small redband, a subspecies, always retains the juvenile par marks. *(I can tell you the story how I ate the world record Yaak river redband subspecies[i do have a picture of it]!) That is another thing, parr marks. Small trouts the size of your lures generally are juvenile and all juvenile Onchorynchus sp. have deep dark, usually dark blue parr marks on the sides. When Rapala introduced their rainbow trout in the '70's they were the first to recognize that fact and to make the lure a juvenile trout, and it worked. Rapala choose to emphasize the trigger for most natural trout predators, the parr marks, for that reason the other colors where secondary in their pattern and to this day it is a very successful paint job. Most lures I see are painted in adult schemes and that is an incorrect color scheme for the size of the lure. Most commercial lures are painted this way, for the fisherman and not the fish.

If you are making a swim bait to imitate the stockers for a bass lure then a chrome fish, peppered with black dots and a pink band is the correct sub species, they are adults at 8 inches and typically are a derivative of a central California strain.

Here is a scientific identification key on line, I often use it. You can look up the correct colors here for the species and location, it is a technical piece.

http://www.fishbase.org/home.htm

I am so happy to see someone take the time and research this difficult question with a dedication to do it correctly. The old adage, match the hatch... applies here too. If you can figure out what type of rainbow is being eaten in the system you intend to fish then copy that one.

Great question, good luck with your quest.

Very informative answer P/P-

Along these lines I made a 'Brook Trout' a couple of years back, was a bit heavy but swam pretty good, I gave it to someone over there so I never got to find out if it tricked trout, but it looked the part - also shows what can be done with 'Pearls' to change colours.

Pete

[Stevenwxly]

Can someone help me with a Rainbow Trout pattern / colors?

Don't see to many Rainbow Trout here in Louisiana

Someone wants me to paint them a Rainbow Trout and I want to make sure its done right.

Any suggestions and especially pics of painted trout baits anyone has done would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Kris,

I have a little tutorial on my web site on how to paint a nice Rainbow Trout pattern....Google for

Little Bit Lures and you will find it. I used to mainly use an airbrush outfit, but now use mostly Rattle Spray cans of paint and can paint a Rainbow Trout in about 10 minutes with some drying time in between, and I think they look pretty good.

I've been making lures longer than 30 days obviously...but never sold any of them....just made them for myself and

friends to use. Now that I am retired (public school teacher) - I started selling them just about 30 days ago and have

now sold around $ 500.00 worth in the last 30 days or so on the Ebay auction, so my hobby has now

turned into a nice little part time business.

Good luck, Steve

Edited March 23, 2010 by Stevenwxly

[Kris]

Here is the finished lure. It is a Strike King Red Eye Shad.

Thanks for all the help ....

[.dsaavedra.]

why don't you ask your customer for a picture of what he wants his rainbow to look like, then paint based on that picture?