Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Rooster Tails for Trout?

Anyone use rooster tails, for trout? What colors, sizes? Taking a trip up to Pagosa Springs in July and looking for some advice.

I’ve used them quite a bit. I use the 1/16 quite a bit for fish average under 12 inches. I’ll bump up to the 1/8 if fish get much bigger than that. My most productive color blade is silver. White, black, chartreuse and blue have all been productive.

My #1 Trout spinner is Panther Martin.
Yellow body with red spots & silver blade for sunny/bright conditions
Black body, yellow spots and gold blade for shady or overcast.

#2 is Blue Fox, silver

Rooster tail is a good spinner but I never cared for the blade design. Seems you have to retrieve them much faster to get it to spin. 90% of my trout are caught on Joe Flies or different small jigs / Berkeley trout worms

In the hands of a master fisherman, I'd bet Panther Martin will outfish (fish landed) similar colored Rooster Tails almost 1.5 to 1.

I've used a size 1 (white with black markings) on smaller (14-17 inch) rainbows, and they just can't seem to resist attacking it. Really nice inline spinner in my experience.

I used to do ok with Rooster Tails in lakes and Mepps spinners in streams and rivers but now use black or yellow Panther Martins every where if I'm using a spinner. They seem to get deeper faster and IME catch more trout.

One lure I don't seem to hear much about any more is the Super Duper. Some days when fishing lakes from shore the trout would hit it consistently on the fall or as soon as I started reeling it back. Course it helps if you can locate the trout first.

Silver and red or black and red Super Duper still do work great on small lakes here in VA and Wva

I have used the rooster tails with the inline spinner. I think they are called vibronic rooster tails. They are superior to the traditional rooster tails. I have caught trout on both the 1/8 oz and 1/16 oz. I use white, green, and brown for the most part. Green and brown both work really well. Most colors work depending on the conditions.

Alpine lake fishing: black or red rooster tail with either blade color, 1/8 or 1/16 size. That's the first offering. But those fish aren't picky.

They work in Georgia too.

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THIS..I have 12 of the black/gold ones in my pocket tackle box and 1 silver one.

Rooster tails have fast " start up speed" and are almost impossible to fish upstream. Panther Martins start spinning easily on a retrieve with the current.

As has been mentioned, rooster tails work their best in lakes.

My experience is that willow-shaped blades run deeper and don’t give off the vibration that Colorado-style (more round) blades do.

Panther Martins & Mepps have the more rounded blades. In my experience the former has a heavier body and tighter spin radius so it runs deeper than the Mepps.

They all have their purpose and I like to keep each of em in my box.

If you’re fishing the San Juan I’d consider trout magnet jigs & Berkley power worms under a small float. My son & I did well on cuts with those rigs when we were there. Keep a close eye on regs as different areas of the river have different regs.

Good luck it’s a gorgeous area!

Rooster tails are great , until i found out about panther martins. They spin better. Deadly on trout. The gold with the orange tail is my go to

I have caught some nice Maine brownies (16")+ on white body/tail+ silver blade 1/16 and 1/8 oz Roostertails ( Sebasticook River)., and 1/8 oz black body w/ copper glitter, black dressed hook, silver blade.

For Maine river smallies, all black or all white Roostertails (each with glitter bodies, silver blades, 1/8-1/6 oz ) work very well.

Have caught Maine Kennebec River rainbows (Shawmut area) on all silver Fox Tails, and Mepps (#1) silver blade, brass body, undressed treble with red tube on shaft.

Some Maine pond brookies on size 0 Mepps dressed with single barb hook and dark fly, silver blade, Panther martin yellow body/silver blade 1/16 -1/8 oz. Small size for ponds.

Starting to make my own in-line spinners now. Those Mepps spinners are getting up there ($).

1/8th ounce roostertail coachdog in color has been the best trout medicine I have found.

What size do you use?

I use all three.

1/16 oz in small creeks and shallow water/small fish.

1/8 oz all around "go to" spinner

1/4 oz for big water/big fish.

The last bunch of Rooster tails I bought were junk and would not spin, no more of them in my box.

Sounds good, I see they also make a tiny 1/32 oz I guess for tiny fish.

Inline rooster tails. I threw out all my other rooster tails when I discovered these.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/wordens-vibric-rooster-tail-inline-spinner

Looks pretty Good!
I don't know if I'd throw all my old ones away as I have several and the nieces and nephews young kids who like to loose a lot of whatever is on there set up.
Good looking Rooster Tail though.

HS 58

Definitely looks good

I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never fished a Panther Martin. I picked some up today and will correct this oversight soon.

Where I live and fish it's tough to beat Rooster Tails and Panther Martins for that matter. I prefer 1/16 oz and smaller for those. Landed my largest rainbow on the smallest Panther Martin.

They sure are enough a clone of the panther Martin which sure works good for me. I like the brass blade with black body and yellow dots the best. Caught a lot of rainbows over the years with them...mb

Put me SOLIDLY into the Panther Martin crowd when not fly fishing. Like, the ultimate "go to" pan size trout lure. Black, yellow, gold.

I've used Joe's, PMs too but if you cast a 0 Mepps upstream and reel it downstream a bit faster than the currents you will fill your creel. Of course you will snag quite a few on rocks so buy a bunch when you find them.

Lockhart . . .

Don't give away all the Mepps fishin methods secrets.
Largest trout I have ever caught was using that method and that size.
Taught me that you do not lip a 25" brown.

Hopefully he hung out there until old age killed him!

I have tried Rooster tails and have never had success!

You guys cast upstream and retrieve with the current? I cast perpendicular to the current and swing the spinner downstream. I barely use the reel at all until I finish my swing or something grabs the lure.

I am also a Panther Martin fan. Most on the black/gold speckled body with gold blade, I use the 1/8 oz exclusively. Most times when I fish I do cast upstream and retrieve down. Reason is simple, the water I fish. I fish mostly small streams (Pa) and most have trees/brush on the edges. It seems to be more effective to get in the water and wade upstream. These creeks are small enough that once you get in the water, you have pretty much spooked the trout across from you. This is especially true in the June/July months when the creek is clear and low.
Now if we are talking just stocked fish, those are a total different class. Easy to catch, really doesn't matter what you throw. I went one afternoon last spring, and caught 30+ on a trout magnet jighead tipped with some other pink and green plastics. (Forget what they are called)

That's how I usually fish it too. Let the current sweep it and reel just enough to keep it off the bottom

+2

I'll have to give them a try. For some reason I've always favored Mepps spinners.
My favorite for trout in moving water is a marabou jig.

We could meet at Adams-Mcgill reservoir and compare! The streams that connect the series of reservoirs hold monster trout...

[img]https://i.imgur.com/EHfbBQ3.jpg?1[/img]

Many moons ago...

Nice bunch!
Wish I was closer, not many trout streams down here.

My favorite spinner of all time is the #6 (1/4oz) black with yellow spots Panther Martin.
It's simply amazing what you can catch on them if fished correctly.
#11 channel cat from a far eastern Oregon river,



Slow drifting it deep through the holes and the cats wouldn't leave it alone....
I've run the Roostertails before with mixed success. mostly I can't get them as deep as I'd like and it takes more water pressure to spin the blades.

The 1/2 oz size of that same Panther Martin spinner is murder on Summer Steelhead in the Lower Deschutes.
Lower 15 miles