Trout Fishing on The Lower Salt River

I grew up and have lived in Arizona’s East Valley my whole life. Anyone who lives here and loves to fish will have fishied the Lower Salt River.

The fun thing about the Lower Salt River is it changes with the seasons every year.

The Salt River is a tail water for Saguaro Lake, Canyon Lake and Apache Lake. They open and close the dam to fill or drain the lakes which serve as reservoirs for the phoenix area.

Because the lakes are used as water reservoirs they close the dam in winter to fill the reservoirs back up to store water for the rest of the year.

This causes a high and low water period for the Salt River. During the winter when it’s lower they stock the river with Rainbow trout.

Today I’l talk about regular trout fishing with a spinner rod and bait from the shore.

There’s two main scenarios I’ve encountered on trout fishing on The Lower Salt River. First is the just stocked the river or it’s been a little while since it was stocked.

It’s important to actually take into consideration if the river was just stocked since this will change how the trout feed.

We’ll talk about the river after it was freshly stocked and how to use bait since I’ve seen freshly sstocked fish tend to prefer it. You can see the stocking schedule on the AZ Game and Fish website

To learn how to use a lure check out my article on how to trout fish the Salt River with a Lure or my article on fly fishing.

If they were just released then dough baits are the way to go. I like to use the powerbait eggs or the gulp nuggets.

I’ve found it’s best to have a few different colors and find the one that works that day, but pink seems to usually come out ahead followed by chartreuse.

Another good option for bait when the trout are freshly stocked are good old fashioned salmon eggs.

With the dough bait or salmon eggs the technique is fairly simple and it changes based on the water flow.

If you’re in a slow moving pool put a splitshot weight about 6-18 inches up from the bait. I normally place it behind the swivel so it won’t slide down as I cast.

You want the bait to float just above the bottom of the river above any rocks as well.

Make sure to cast the line in an area free from tall grass where it’s visible, but close to cover.

once you cast wait a few minutes if you don”t get a bit real it in a little to get the bait in a new spot for different fish to see.

I’ve even caught plenty of trout while reeling in a dough bait or salmon eggs.

If the water is moving kinda quickly in the spot you intend to fish you’re going to switch up the strategy.

Trout generally “park” as I call it in a river and face up and swim against the current to hold still and strike at passing food.

When you’re at a moving section of the river don’t use a weight. Just cast your line up river and let it float down past the waiting trout.

You’ll want to cast and let the bait follow a few different paths down the river to pull out any trout in the area.

Once you’ve gone through the area letting your bait go over the surface put a very small piece of splitshot on so that it will still flow with the river but sink down and bounce across the bottom.

It’s important that you use a really small split shot for this technique because you want it to bounce and flow through the river as naturaly as possible.

Once again try and float it down the river in different spots along the same stretch.

Pro tip: when letting the bait drift, cast up and to an angle that way you have minimal slack in the line that you can easily pull out by lifting your rod tip.

With those two techniques you’ll be able to catch trout on the salt river using bait.

Disclaimer: I only recommend products I have used and truly would use again. Some of the links on this site are affiliate links and may result in me getting a commission though they don’t affect my reviews.