Customer Reviews

Trout Fishing: The Tactical Secrets of Lake Fishing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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I'm just starting out fishing and I own a boat. This book did a great job of explaining how and where to troll on a lake. It also described a good process for locating fish on a lake. Finally, it was easy to read, fairly short, and to the point.

If you're bank or fly fishing (i.e. not trolling), I'd probably get a different book. While you can still get good information about location, fish behavior, etc, you'd probably get frustrated with all the trolling specific content.

The only question the writers didn't answer is how they got their wifes to agree to so much fishing. Now that would have been a secret worth sharing... Great job on the book guys.

Just finished reading this book. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer, but I loved Rychkun's logical approach to finding and catching fish. This book pulled all the generalities I'd heard together (fish on a slack tide, fish early in the morning, fish at creek mouths, fish deep when it's hot etc) into a practical method to attack the spot you are fishing. It backs up the method with the scientific reasoning for each strategy.

Without giving away too much of the book, most fish behaviour is driven by the following priorities:
- they need to find the correct temperature of water
- they need to find enough oxygen to breathe
- they need to find food
- they need to avoid predators and harsh elements
- they need to reproduce.

The theme of the book is that if you understand where in the water the fish are most likely to satisfy as many of the above needs, then this area will statistically have more fish, and hence statistically speaking you should catch more. It's not a guarantee - we all know there's no such thing in fishing - but I'm convinced it will increase your chances.

Overall a very informative and readable book. I didn't like the way the short 'On the Water' stories were written, as the dialogue in them seemed to be too technical to be 'verbal' - but this is a small point. I give a hearty recommendation for this book.

The book reminds me a little of a Ben Hogan?? quote when a reporter commented that he seemed to have more than his fair share of luck. Hogan replied "Funnily enough, the more I practice, the luckier I get". I'm hoping that after reading this book and applying the principles I'm a luckier angler....

I lost my copy and am buying another. This book is as simple, yet logical, as it gets. Stop flogging the water. Be in the right place at the right time, everytime. After getting this book my biggest fish caught went from a 4 lb trout to a 20 lb trout, and I attribute a lot of it to the tactics that this book taught me. If you fish for trout buy this book because it will save you hundreds of hours and dollars in mediocre fishing trips.

According to the book's description, "Complex behaviour is really a set of simple and predictable patterns." Unfortunately, I've learned the hard way that finding and catching fish usually is anything but "predictable." One of the benefits of professional fishing is the trend toward reality-based fishing advice. The pros are the first to admit that there are few hard-and-fast rules on the water. You can find fish one day, and they'll be gone the next, for no apparent reason. Depressing, isn't it?

According to the author, we eliminate unproductive areas of water, reducing our fishing to only the productive areas of the lake. Sounds good, right?

Now let's analyze the "predictable patterns":
1. correct temperature -- trout can't handle water above 75 degrees F
2. oxygen -- most lakes have adequate oxygen from the surface down to thirty feet, or deeper
3. food -- finding trout prey is just as challenging as finding the trout themselves

Now let's use the "predictable patterns" to formulate our fishing plan: Fish in the first 30 feet of the water column that is also less than 75 degrees. Not that helpful, is it? Our plan still leaves lot of water to cover.

This book does discuss the topic of fishing for trout in lakes from a non-motorized boat. There isn't much information on this subject, and it makes for good reading on a day when we can't go fishing. Just don't take it too seriously when the fish refuse to be "predictable."

This book was exactly as described by the author, a common sense approach for finding fish in a lake. The methods that are described are good for newcomer to the sport, but are otherwise "common sense" for anglers with some experience. The same information could easily be gleaned from a couple of articles on fishing in Outdoor Life, etc. Overall, this was not helpful for me, but could be for a novice.