[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Hi James, I've been fishing with ultralite lure's in the upper River Severn and a few smaller Welsh rivers specifically for Brown Trout for the past 3 years. I have also found it to be the most productive method, I regularly outfish both bait and fly fishermen on the same stretch of river. The most productive lures I have used and come to love are the Rapala F5 floating in light silver and rainbow trout colours. I have also found over the years that setup is very important for these minnows to work properly so this is what I now use; I tie a 12” to 18” 4lb leader directly to the lure (no clips or split rings) its very important to use a Rapala knot or the action of the lure will be severely affected. The other end of the leader is tied onto a small swivel (as small as you can get) I then use a small lure clip on the end of my main line to attach the leader, I currently use 10lb PowerPro but will be going much thinner and lighter for next year with some of the new 8 strand braids coming out. I find my most productive results have always come from casting either up stream or across the flow but the real key is finding flow and structure, there's loads of good books out on freshwater water craft which are well worth tracking down. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Wild Brownies are great sport on light gear as well, they never get much above 3.5 to 4.5 lb in the upper Severn and most being much smaller but have never seen a feed pellet in their lives and are truly wild.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The most productive times I tend to find are in late summer and a few days after a heavy fall of rain, this tends to get the river level up and washes smaller fry down stream where the Trout just pick them off. [/FONT]