Salmonidae
Brown trout
Salmo trutta · Stream residents run 20–40 cm; lake- and sea-fed fish reach 60–90 cm.
How it feeds
Brown trout switch from drift-feeding on nymphs as juveniles to ambush predation on fish and crayfish once they pass about 30 cm. The largest fish in any river are almost always in the deepest, darkest water and feed at night or at first light.
How to fish for it
Because they are wary and long-lived, browns reward patience over coverage. Fish for one fish at a time on a river where you can see them; on bigger water, work the structure with a streamer at dawn and switch to the dry fly when a hatch starts.
Flies that work: Woolly Bugger · Pheasant Tail Nymph · Comparadun · Sherry Spinner · Klinkhamer Special
Brown trout in the ledger
Au Sable River
Northern Lower Michigan, United StatesThe spiritual home of American dry-fly fishing, with a night hatch worth losing sleep for.
brook · brown · rainbow
May · Jun · Jul · SepBeaverkill River
Catskill Mountains, New York, United StatesThe river that invented American dry-fly fishing, and still the best classroom for it.
brown · brook
May · Jun · Sep · OctBighorn River
South-central Montana, United StatesA cold, stable tailwater with 3,000+ fish per kilometre and midge hatches in January.
brown · rainbow · whitefish
Mar · Apr · Sep · Oct · Nov · DecDavidson River
Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, United StatesThe most accessible trout water in the southern Appalachians, and surprisingly technical.
brown · rainbow
Apr · May · Sep · OctFarmington River
Litchfield County, Connecticut, United StatesNew England's most reliable tailwater, with a catch-and-release TMA that fishes in January.
brown · brook · rainbow
May · Jun · Jul · Sep · OctFryingpan River
Basalt, Colorado, United StatesTwenty-three kilometres of cold, clear water that made mysis shrimp famous in fly fishing.
rainbow · brown
Jan · Feb · Mar · Sep · Oct · NovGreen River below Flaming Gorge
Dutch John, Utah, United StatesA big, cold tailwater that grows enormous rainbows and hosts a genuine cicada hatch.
rainbow · brown · cutthroat
May · Jun · Jul · Aug · SepHenry's Fork of the Snake
Eastern Idaho, United StatesThe most technical dry-fly water in the lower 48, with weed beds that punish a dragged fly.
rainbow · brown · brook
May · Jun · Jul · Sep · OctLetort Spring Run
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United StatesThe hardest small stream in America, and the one that invented the terrestrial fly.
brown
Apr · May · Jun · OctMadison River
Southwest Montana, United StatesA 183 km riffle-and-run river where dam releases, not rain, decide your fly.
brown · rainbow · whitefish
Apr · May · Jun · Sep · OctPenns Creek
Centre and Snyder Counties, Pennsylvania, United StatesWhere the Green Drake hatch is a public event and the whole valley closes for a week.
brown · brook · rainbow
Apr · May · Jun · OctPere Marquette River
West-central Michigan, United StatesA national-forest river where fall steelhead run on autumn rain, not on a dam schedule.
brown · steelhead · rainbow
Apr · May · Sep · Oct · NovRiver Test
Hampshire, England, United KingdomThe birthplace of dry-fly fishing, and still the hardest place to fool a brown trout.
brown · grayling · rainbow
Apr · May · Jun · SepRiver Wharfe
Yorkshire Dales, England, United KingdomA dales river where the grayling season covers the winter and the trout season does not.
grayling · brown
Jan · Feb · Jun · Oct · Nov · DecSan Juan River
Navajo Dam to Farmington, New Mexico, United StatesSixteen kilometres of midge-and-mayfly water where a 50-fish day is unremarkable.
rainbow · brown
Mar · Apr · May · Sep · Oct · NovSoča River
Julian Alps, SloveniaThe only river in the world with a native marble trout, in water that looks photoshopped.
marble trout · grayling · rainbow · brown
May · Jun · Jul · SepSouth Platte — Deckers and Cheesman
Front Range foothills, Colorado, United StatesTwo rivers in one: a pocket-water canyon above and a walk-and-wade flat below.
rainbow · brown
Jan · Feb · Mar · Oct · Nov · DecTongariro River
Taupō, North Island, New ZealandThe most reliable winter trout fishery in the southern hemisphere, in a volcanic valley.
rainbow · brown
Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · OctTraun River
Upper Austria / Salzkammergut, AustriaChalk-stream clarity with alpine gradient, and some of Europe's largest grayling.
brown · grayling · rainbow
May · Jun · Sep · Oct · NovWhite River, Arkansas
Ozark foothills below Bull Shoals Dam, Arkansas, United StatesA tailwater you fish from a boat, where the generation schedule is the tide table.
brown · rainbow · cutthroat
Apr · May · Jun · Sep · Oct · Nov