Tactics

Browns often selectively feed on certain types of insects, both at the surface of the water and below it, and any serious student of the brown trout is very familiar with the mayflies, stoneflies, midges, and caddis upon which brown trout so often feed. Large browns often become "cannibals", eating not only smaller trout, but also crayfish, minnows, suckers, mice, and whatever else the stream might have living in it. Some populations of browns are anadramous, like the steelhead, and grow huge. In most cases, the best tactic for going after browns is with a dry or sunken fly on a lightweight flyrod. Brown trout are famous for their selectivity; during heavy hatches of one particular type of insect, they will gorge themselves on that exact bug and ignore everything else, no matter how tempting it might be. But it takes a very heavy hatch to bring out this behavior in browns, so most of the time generic "buggy" flies will produce plenty of them.