Just wondering which tactics are used by other forum members for targeting bigger Trout, apart from the obvious like fishing venues with bigger fish do you use bigger lures/flies or employ a certain other tactic?

observation and patience Thats the key

It works for me

Do you mean 'Big Fish' that are stocked 'Big' or fish that are naturally big for their environment?

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

Presume you're talking about stocked trout there's a myriad of things you can do to stack the odds in your favour.

Firstly go to a water that stocks big trout.

Secondly don't cast your fly unless you can see a big trout to cast at, fish blind and you'll catch large fish in the quantity they're stocked, ie about .5% of the fish you catch! Get some polaroids on and get stalking

Try to blend in a little. Yes the fish is a stockie, but it's likely to have been flogged by everyone who's seen it! think like the fish. if it's hot, where would you lie?

Don't cast at the fish, but where the fish will be. you want your fly to be at or below the fish's depth by the time he reaches it.

Watch his reaction to the fly. some fish, for whatever reason are not catchable. classic signs of this are if the fish is 'nervous', swimming fast, black coloured, shaking its head, lying flat on the bottom etc etc. look for a fish that's either hovering in mid water, or on a slow patrol in a pattern.

Use strong hooks, sounds daft but a lot of shop bought flies (especially fastmail and the like) are not on strong enough hooks.

Keep moving, just because there wasnt a big fish there this morning, does not mean there isn't one there now.

a few good casts are better than a hundred poor ones. make the first count

Lastly, good luck. Try and catch a big fish and you probably will, hope to catch on and you probably won't.

Cheers
Alex

Thanks for the replies, yes I meant stockies, my ambition is to catch a double figure Brownie a tall order I know but I like to aim high