Features:
Its body has longer and cylindrical shape and is flattened on the sides. Its mouth reaches right to the eyes and has numerous a bit curved teeth. The male especially an older one can be distinguished from the female for his upfront moved and curved point of the lower jaw. Between the dorsal and straight caudal fin lies adipose fin (fat tissue) which is a salmonid feature. The colour of the Brown trout depends on first, the environment it swims in and second, on the natural or artificial crossbreeding with the Lake trout. Both trouts are subspecies of the See trout although they are not living in the see and spawning in fresh waters. Crossbreeding between all the subspecies of the Salmo trutta is genetically possible which means that the fertilizing of the eggs and development of the offspring is normal. Brown trout called the pure one by the fishermen lives in the same environment for more generations without crossbreeding with other subspecies. The mane features are vivid red round spots with lighter red edges on the side. They are visible above and under the lateral line. Red but irregular shaped spots (1 or 2) are visible on the adipose fin also. The head, back and dorsal fin are covered in darker spots matching the main colour of the back. The back colour depends on the habitat the fish lives in. It can be from light brown to dark green with the lighter sides and whitish, greyish or yellowish belly. Youngsters have upright darker stripes on the sides which are called “youthful stripes” and are characteristic for all salmonids. It has small scales covered with slime. Brown trout rarely reaches more than 50 cm in length and 1 kg in weight. Bigger fish can be found in deeper and richer waters. The most beautiful and colourful Brown trout can be found in upper stream of the Cerkniščica Creek.

Spawning:
It spawns from November to March usually in December and January in fast and gravelly water. Fish can swim upstream even over dams to find the right spawning spot. The female digs the spawning hole in which she lays 1000-300 eggs (4-5 mm in diameter) on 1 kg of her boy weight. Artificial trout farming is very popular. Farming in creek basins is more popular than farming in artificial pools because of the bigger loses. Fish in the artificial pools are more sensitive to diseases and parasites and develop cannibalism.

Habitat:
Brown trout can be found in cool, oxygen rich upper streams of the all European rivers. It was inserted in various rivers on all continents. It can also be founds in affluxes into the Mediterranean see where it developed characteristics distinguished for that habitat. Trout can live in alpine streams as well as in lowland streams as long as they are saturated with oxygen. The level of oxygen depends on the water temperature and strength of the current which is bigger if there are river dams. The biggest fish can be found right above and under the dams. In the districts of the Association the brown trout can be found mostly in the upper stream of the Cerkniščica Creek. It swims also in the outfall of the Stržen Creek and in the upper stream of Rak Creek. The trout doesn’t live in Lake Cerknica.

Fishing technique:
It is one of the most popular fish for the fishermen mostly for fly fishing. They are solitary animals which stay hidden in the shelter for most of the time except when bursting out for prey. It likes to hunt for insects and thus during the insect season the fly fishing is most successful. We flyfish with dry fly, underwater fly or nymph depends on the weather conditions and the layer of the water the fish is swimming at that time. The choice of bait is very important. We use the dry fly when the fish is picking up insects from the water and swims right under the surface. If there is no success we should change the bait to nymph and throw it into water and star to pulling it towards the surface. This way we attract the fish that is swimming in the middle layer of the water. If the fish is hunting towards the bottom we should use underwater fly, preferably a bigger one with a heavier streamer. We led the bait vertically from the bottom towards the surface. Experienced fisherman will take a good look around to find out what kind of insects are flying around and will choose the bait accordingly. After a worm day in the late afternoon even big specimen are eager to snap the artificial sedge. When fishing for bigger trout in deeper waters with overgrown banks and have no success with artificial fly we use spinning.
The growing demands for protecting the brown trout are anticipating from fishermen not to use triples when spinning or even better use only barbless hooks. With harming the youngsters we are decreasing the trout population.
Even though that at Lake Cerknica is permitted to spin fish with a spinner bigger than no. 3 the numbers or flyfishers are climbing every year. When one experiences the joy of fighting and catching the trout on the fly the fisherman made it himself that one will never use the spinner again. And right so!

The trout’s flesh is very tasty, of high quality and with almost no fish bones as with all salmonids. You can find some recipes in our special column Recipes.