Trout fishing is an ancient and respected sport, steeped in tradition and replete with maxims. Many are outdated but some never will be. This article will try to reemphasize one of the latter.

Most trout streams contain brown trout. Natives of Europe, they were brought here when many of our waters became too degraded to support native brook trout. Wisconsin's first brown trout eggs arrived at the Bayfield hatchery in 1887.

These immigrants provide trout fishing in streams where otherwise there would be none. They also brought survival skills, gained through a 2000 year history of being sport fished for, that our native trout don't have. Much harder to catch than brook or rainbow trout, they are the prevalent species in our trout streams today.

Long ago any fish dumb enough to continue feeding when it was apparent a human was around has been eliminated from the brown trout lineage. The strain we fish for is universally recognized as the angler's wariest quarry. Hundreds of years ago, an English angling writer admonished brown trout fishers to "study to be inconspicuous".

This is still the cardinal rule for successful trouting but it seems we have to relearn it periodically.

All this was brought home forcibly to me late one summer afternoon some twenty odd years ago. Bud Cufaude and I were fly fishing Mt. Vernon Creek in Dane County. Bud out fished me six ways from Sunday and by dusk had taken four beautiful large browns on a peacock herl nymph. I was using an identical fly and had landed absolutely nothing. Bud was wearing a dark shirt and I a light-colored one.

About dusk we returned to the car for coffee and a sandwich. It was getting a little chilly so we both donned sweatshirts before resuming fishing. Bud's >was white and mine a dark color.

In the next hour, I caught four nice brown trout and Bud never got another hit.

One forenoon in February of this year, Bud's son Mike, and I fly fished a creek in Grant County. It was right after a snowfall and Mike wore a white suit >he used for fox hunting, and a white stocking cap. I wore my regular fishing clothes. He was all but invisible against the snow, while I must have stood out like a sore thumb.

Mike caught and released six nice brown trout on silver nymphs. Using the same pattern, I had one feeble rise and missed that.

Walk into any tackle store or pursue the latest fishing catalogs and check on apparel offered to trout anglers. Almost without exception they offer hats, fly vests, jackets, and cloth creels that are either light tan, off white, or some garish color that will stand out on a trout stream like a beacon. If you find a cloth creel of a dark hue, usually its mesh panels are light colored or it has a shiny hardware.

Incredibly enough, otherwise rational fishermen buy them. Many anglers on the streams today dress like those in calendar pictures, white hat, loud shirt, light-colored vest and all. Any self-respecting brown trout will laugh himself silly.

Join a fishing club and they send you a light colored club patch for your jacket or vest. Whose side are they on?

Tackle manufacturers even seem to bolster the trout's early warning system. Rods with chrome fittings. Reels with shiny sides. Landing nets with bright metal frames. All designed to reflect sunlight and get the trout's attention.

Serious trout fishers should wear clothing with what fabric designers call "earth" tones. Dull hues of brown, green and dark gray blend with stream surroundings during most of the season. Winter fishers will find white coveralls useful after a snowfall.

If you must wear light-colored fishing club patches, sew them on the back of your jacket.

Don't wear or carry anything that can glisten in the sunlight. Bright rod fittings, reels, net frames and creel hardware can be dulled with flat green or brown aerosol paint.

If your sleeve doesn't cover your wrist watch, carry it in a pocket.

Take advantage of broken water to conceal you from the fish. Fish from a kneeling position and stay crouched when you move. Keep low enough so the trout won't see your silhouette above stream side foliage or the horizon.

Vision is the trout's foremost tool for self-preservation. Scientists tell us trout can see in the dark better than we can. They see colors we do and some we can't. Their eyes are positioned so as to see backwards and upwards as well as ahead, all at the same time.

Angling books often give precise diagrams of what is called a trout's window. Theoretically a trout is able to see only out of a limited area of water surface, depending on its depth under water.

Waves, however, can alter this window. For instance, a wake traveling ahead of a wading angler can enlarge it. Don't wade and fish unless you have to.

Stay out of the stream as much as possible. This is the fish's environment. Sounds carry great distances under water. A careless step and you might as well have phoned ahead and told the trout you were coming.