Brown Trout
Salmo trutta
A patient, predatory trout with a halo of red and black spots — the ghost of cold European rivers, now haunting cold rivers everywhere.
Browse the Woodcut Wild shop →Habitat
Brown trout favor cold, well-oxygenated rivers and lakes between roughly 50 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. They hold near structure — undercut banks, sunken logs, seams behind boulders — and move into riffles at dawn and dusk to feed. Native to Europe and western Asia, they have been introduced to nearly every cold-water fishery on the planet.
Behavior
Adults are ambush predators, holding in deep water and slow seams during the day and venturing into shallower water to feed at low light. They eat aquatic insects, baitfish, crayfish, and the occasional mouse or vole that mistimes a swim. Large brown trout become almost entirely piscivorous and are notoriously selective and wary.
Marginalia
- The largest brown trout ever recorded weighed over 44 pounds, caught in New Zealand in 2020.
- Brown trout can live 20 years in the right water — long-lived by fish standards.
- The red spots are surrounded by pale halos that act like camouflage in dappled river light.
- Sea-run brown trout (sea trout) are the same species but spend part of their life in saltwater.
