You want to rig up your rod as you normally would for trout fishing off of the bottom of the lake or pond. You will tie your hook (I like to use owner mosquito hooks in a size 4 or 6) to the leader. I like to use about a 24in leader and you can use longer depending on where the fish are holding, but you should be fine with starting a 24in. I use mostly 4lb test when fishing for stocked trout, but you can up to six if there are some nice sized trout in the lake or pond you are fishing. You then tie your leader to a swivel and then slide a snap swivel up your main line (the part of the line that is going to your reel). You can then attach the leader swivel to your main line and it should look like the picture below. You are now ready to put the bait on the hook.
I will use three eggs most of the time but sometimes the trout are a little weary and you can go down to two eggs on your hook. As you can see in the picture below you want to slide the eggs onto the hook so they sit horizontal with the hook. This is the most important part of the rig and is the major reason why this rig works so well. When a fish takes the bait into its mouth, it will normally do it from the right side in the picture above because of the way the bait is floating in the water. You want to check to make sure your hook floats and sits in the water somewhat horizontally. When the fish tries to spit the bait out or you set the hook it easily hooks the fish in the top of the mouth and most of the time the fish will actually hook themselves. Don't worry about the hook sticking out, the fish doesn’t mind, trust me.
Well that is pretty much it for this simple effective trick for catching trout in lakes and ponds. Another little secret is that it’s always a good idea to dip your bait in some kind of scent. I will go over different kinds of sents in another article, but any of the pro-cure bait scents work well. Good luck out there and let us know how this rig works for you.
