How to Use Trout’s Sense of Smell to Catch More Fish

April 2024

For trout anglers, understanding how these fish interact with their underwater environment is crucial knowledge. While trout rely on a combination of senses like vision, hearing, and lateral line detection, one overlooked sense is extremely important – their sense of smell.

See our other content that highlights the importance of scents and smells and what causes fish to bite to be a successful angler.  See our article Triggers that make fish strike a lure or bait.

A Nose Far Superior to Ours

Trout have an incredibly advanced sense of smell thanks to their specialized olfactory system. Located on the front of their face are a pair of nostrils leading to nasal pits lined with thousands of smell receptors. And their olfactory bulb in the brain dedicated to processing smells is quite large compared to other regions.

This finely tuned olfactory system allows trout to detect and identify incredibly faint scents and chemicals in the water that we humans could never perceive. Estimates suggest a trout’s sense of smell could be thousands of times stronger than our own!

Scent is the Spark for Feeding

So why is a strong nose so important for trout? Smell guides much of their feeding behavior in the wild. Trout rely heavily on dissolved scents in the water to locate food sources like insect hatches, baitfish, eggs and more. Those smells can trigger trout into an energetic feeding mode. 

Their sense of smell also aids in other critical situations like detecting pheromones from other trout, avoiding predators, and sensing potential dangers that could be lurking nearby. The dispersal of certain scents gives trout a full picture of their underwater world.  Trout can also detect “bad” scents which cause them to disperse.  It is important to keep scents such as suntan lotion, soaps, etc. from lures, lines, and baits to maximize your catch.

For Anglers – Match the Scent

Understanding this reliance on scent provides another void for anglers to exploit on trout. Using baits, lures and flies that incorporate potent scent trails can be the extra edge needed to trigger more strikes from your next trout. Scents mimic those natural smells that get trout so fired up to feed. 

Scent infused baits such as Berkley Powerbait or Gulp! can be highly effective on catching trout.   See our article on creating your own DIY lures with Powerbait here Catch More Trout by Making Your Own PowerBait Lures

Live bait is also effective as it has built-in natural scents and actions.  See our articles Bait for Freshwater Fishing and Catch and Keep Your Own Bait for more information.

So, whether you are pursuing rainbows, browns, brook trout or others – do not overlook the importance of their incredible sense of smell. Tapping into those olfactory senses could be the key to catching more trout.