Brown trout

Quick facts

How to identify it

A streamlined salmonid with a squarish tail, a large adipose fin and a wide mouth that reaches back past the eye in adults. Colour depends on the water: golden-brown to olive on the back and flanks, scattered with black and usually red or orange spots, many of them ringed with a pale halo; the tail is unspotted or nearly so. Lake fish are often silvery with fewer red marks. The rainbow trout has a pink lateral band and a heavily spotted tail, the brook trout shows worm-like markings on the back and white-edged lower fins, and the grayling carries a huge dorsal fin.

Where it lives

Brown trout need cool, well-oxygenated water and thrive between roughly 8 and 18 °C, which ties them to gravel-bedded streams and rivers, mountain and upland rivers, spring-fed streams with a constant temperature, tailwaters below dams, and cold, deep lakes and reservoirs. In flowing water they hold in defined lies: the head and tail of pools, the slack behind boulders, undercut banks, the shade of overhanging trees and current seams where fast water delivers food with little effort. The biggest fish takes the best lie and defends it. In lakes they patrol drop-offs, inflow mouths and windward shores, moving into the shallows at dusk. The native range runs from Iceland and Scandinavia to the karst rivers of the Balkans.

Season and behaviour

Brown trout spawn from October to January, cutting redds in gravel shallows and headwater tributaries, and almost every country protects them with an autumn–winter closed season. The season opens in spring as the water warms and insect life stirs; April to June is the classic period, when hatches of mayflies, caddis and stoneflies bring fish to the surface. In high summer trout feed at dawn, dusk and after dark, and the largest specimens hunt minnows and sculpins at night. September and early October bring a strong pre-spawn feed. Brown trout are territorial and easily spooked: a shadow, a heavy footfall or a bad cast puts a pool down for an hour. Overcast, drizzly days and a slight rise in the river are ideal.

Fishing methods

Fly fishing is the reference method: dry flies during hatches, nymphs dead-drifted through pools and riffles (tight-line nymphing is deadly), and streamers stripped through deep pools for the big, fish-eating specimens. Spin fishing with small spinners, spoons and minnow plugs of 3–7 cm suits fast, coloured water and larger rivers; cast upstream and retrieve slightly faster than the current. Where bait is allowed, a worm or grasshopper trotted under a small float, or drifted freely through a pool on a single split shot, takes trout in swollen, murky water when flies fail. Use light rods, fine lines and long fluorocarbon leaders, and approach every lie from downstream, keeping low and out of sight.

Baits and lures

Match the season: small dark nymphs and mayfly patterns in spring, caddis and terrestrials such as ants, beetles and grasshoppers in summer, streamers in autumn and in low light. Lures should be small and natural — silver, copper and gold spinners, small spoons and minnow plugs. Natural baits, where permitted, are earthworms, maggots, grasshoppers, caddis larvae and small dead minnows; in stocked reservoirs trout also take sweetcorn and paste.

Tips from the bank

1. 01Fish upstream and stay low — a trout facing the current cannot see behind it, and your first cast to a lie is the one that counts.
2. 02Cover the water systematically: the tail of a pool first, then the seams, then the head, so a hooked fish does not spook the rest.
3. 03When nothing rises, go subsurface with a weighted nymph and add weight until you tick bottom every few drifts.
4. 04Fish streamers at dusk and after dark in summer — the biggest browns eat fish, not flies.
5. 05A rising, slightly coloured river after rain is the best bait day of the year; a falling, clearing river is the best fly day.
6. 06Use a long leader and a fine tippet on flat, clear pools, and switch to a heavier tippet in fast, broken water.
7. 07Wet your hands and keep the fish in the water — wild brown trout grow slowly and every released fish matters.

Where to catch Brown trout

Waters where Shoalmap's fishing reports list Brown trout.

• Grauklingenbach
• Banjska reka
• Hallingdalselve
• Sea
• Kuka
• Lim
• Majdan
• Rokov potok
• Montour Run
• Malokamenički potok
• Liqeni i Gramës
• Grbovica
• Mali potok
• Srebrni potok
• Κηφισός
• Λίμνη Μεγαλόπολης-Λίμνη Τραπεζούντας
• Μονοδένδρι
• Fosso Vorga
• Tisa
• Meleg-víz
• Timiș
• Körös-éri-főcsatorna
• Krivaja
• Arroyo Codosero
• Arroyo de Valbueno
• Szelestei-patak
• Kőris-patak
• Krivaja
• Drina

Related species

• Sea trout
  Salmo trutta trutta

  The silver, sea-going brown trout that runs the rivers at night.

• Rainbow trout
  Oncorhynchus mykiss

  The hard-fighting, high-jumping trout of stocked lakes and cool rivers.

• Brook trout
  Salvelinus fontinalis

  The jewel-coloured char of icy headwaters and mountain lakes.

• Grayling
  Thymallus thymallus

  The sail-finned lady of clean, fast-flowing rivers.

Frequently asked questions