I have also caught a few on minnows, but not many. I fish for rainbows through the ice in a lake in the mountains of PA. Do some exporing, have fun, and catch more fish. A willingness to continually change methods throughout the day until you hit what works. Approach each day of fishing with a fresh and open mind. Each time you set foot on the ice forget all that came before. I think the key to success is openmindedness. This is often a serious detriment to the angler. They develop a sense of overconfidence in such methods. Often people spend their lives fishing a handful of methods that have worked for them on occasion in the past. It's hard to shake ideals and old habits. If you look down and see lots of critters swimming around just under the ice, then explore the upper portion of the water column.I've fished with people that seem reluctant to do this even when I am catching and they are not. Often the forage rainbows seek will be suspended just under the ice.

Even if an active rainbow is hugging bottom he is almost certain to rise to a lure presented four or five feet over his head.

Too many anglers drop their lure all the way to bottom and keep it there for the entire day. More than anything I believe searching the entire water column to be the key to success. I think Polar hit the nail on the head when it comes to being successful for rainbows. Hope this helps you out, even though this is mostly tips for wild rainbows, my lakes are augmented with stockers and I catch the lights out of those. range where more than half of my fish come from. Make sure you jig the whole water column, especially that key 8-12 ft. away from where I am actively jigging a castmaster. Sometimes I like to be deadsticking a worm near the bottom on a hole about 4 or 5 ft. Blue or orange seems to be the best colors. Personally I think, nothing outfishes a shrimpo or ratso tipped with a waxworm though. Power bait does work for stockers, I will agree.

you described, they move gradually deeper as the day goes on, and then shallower in the evening. In the morning is when they are more apt to be in the 1-4 ft. Seems theiy also like dropoffs and will suspend around the 8-12 ft. In my experience 1 to 4 feet is a bit shallow (although there are fish there).

Best rainbow trout castmaster