To thousands of American fly fishers, the brown trout is something special, respected and prized, but this wasn't always true.

Imported from Europe less than a hundred years ago because more and more of our streams were becoming too degraded to support native trout, It adapted to the new environment with enthusiasm.

Conditioned for centuries to the warmer, agrarian, hard fished European streams, the brown trout found, like many other emigrants that America was "the land of opportunity". It proved it could thrive in pristine water but made an even better showing in the turbid, heavily pressured streams of populous areas.

Accustomed to outwitting European fishers it found those here no more than a minor annoyance. In short, Americans couldn't catch them.

New world anglers, used to filling their creels with less wary native trout, found the newcomers were a different breed.

The brown's inherent aversion to taking bait and lures that weren't presented absolutely naturally made techniques that had been successful with our native trout useless. Gaudy attractor flies that brook and rainbow trout relished were spurned by the newcomers.

The brown trout's love for hiding places like undercut banks and submerged logs placed a premium on casting skill.

Stout, relatively large terminal tackle had to be replaced with light, fine diameter tippets to even get a rise. Often, leaders fine enough to fool these new fish were smashed by their first tearing plunge back to cover.

Then the furor started. Frustrated anglers stormed, crying, 'Speckled carp", or "They don't taste good anyway". Accusations that the fish were "cannibals taking over brook trout streams" were popular. Not a word, of course, that the reason the browns were here was because native trout could no longer tolerate the water.

Fishery departments added to the uproar. One state's conservation department said, "Experiments and experience have convinced us that the brown trout is inferior in every respect to the rainbow". An official from another state said, "Brown trout are a poor investment in terms of returns to fishermen".

Later, Montana officials showed a better grasp of the situation. "The brown trout is a good fish, but the average angler is not skilled enough to catch it", they said.

All over the country, stocking of browns slowed. Rainbows were planted instead. They could stand lower quality water than brookies and were easy to catch.

Rainbows were put in and caught out, put in and caught out. Most stream conditions weren't conducive to their reproducing and because they were easily taken, carry over was minimal.

For the maximum-harvest meat-market philosophy prevalent in fish management until recently, rainbows were ideal.

Just to show how all pervasive this attitude was, I recall that, years ago, the old Wisconsin Conservation Department actually instituted a project to develop a strain of brown trout that could be easily caught.

Their idea was that through selective breeding, using the most stupid fish, they should arrive at a lineage that would be easy to harvest. Can you imagine, deliberately trying to develop a race of retarded fish? Fortunately the project was a failure and was abandoned.

All this time, in water too marginal for brook trout, the introduced browns were thriving. Each generation became more firmly established, often in streams where their presence was little noted.

Opposition to the foreigner began to wane. A few anglers, encouraged no doubt, by the knowledge that these were the fish so esteemed in Europe that the fly fishing we know today, was evolved with them in mind, gradually increased their finesse and started taking brown trout.

Some of them shared their experience through books and angling magazines and interest in fishing for browns increased. Fly fishing books from England where browns are the trout became in demand here. All this helped along by the realization that, in many streams, they were the resident species, the only wild trout fishing available.

Here in Wisconsin, southern streams are now almost all brown trout water and the northern, brook trout. Present DNR management avoids introduction of brown trout where brook trout are established. According to DNR data, about one-third of the state's hatchery production is brown trout but browns furnish half its trout fishing.

I never cease to be amazed by the size of browns that frequently turn up in these small southern Wisconsin streams. At times cow pasture creeks produce fish that make a fellow wonder where they find room to turn around.

A stream I used to fish in Iowa county is a good instance. In many places it could be stepped across and you cast kneeling well back from the pools to avoid being seen. Wading would have been ridiculous.

Over the years, it produced many golden hued browns from fifteen to eighteen inches long for me, and, of course, smaller fish also.

One evening several years ago, just a day or two before the season closed, my wife and I went for a drive. By a happy coincidence we eventually found ourselves on a road that crossed the stream. About dusk I parked by a bridge and while she waited in the car, I got my rod from the trunk and proceeded to crowd in a little last minute fishing.

At that time I was still fishing almost exclusively dry and I had a "beaverkill" tied on. This is a high-riding gray-brown palmer fly with wings.

The pool I elected to try was about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. Water poured into it down a steep riffle and a large blown-down tree laid with its top extending over half the pool just below the riffle.

Staying down and well back, I threw the fly up on the fast water and it came dancing down the riffle, into the pool and lodged under one of the tree branches. Although I figured everything in the pool would probably be spooked. I raised the rod tip sharply three or four times and the fly came loose.

Still riding high on the hackle tips, it swirled with the current out around the tree branches.

While I watched in astonishment, the largest brown I ever saw came out from under the tree, turned on its side like a shark and rose to take the fly.

Well, to make a painful story short, I reared back and pulled as hard as I could. I sure saved the fly from that fish. He went down and, as far as I know, never came up again. I felt Iike somebody had kicked me in the stomach. That >must be as close to buck fever as a fisher can get.

Years have passed but, in my mind’s eye, I can still see that giant fish turning to take the fly and its great flanks showing like burnished gold in the twilight. It looked as long as my arm. Occasionally I catch myself thinking, "Maybe, if I get over there some fall evening, he would rise again". I have gotten older, but that fish hasn't.

Since then, the DNR has seen fit to allow winter trout fishing in six counties, of which Iowa is one. Large resident browns are only a memory now in those streams.

However, many other southern and central counties with good streams have so far been spared. I recently accompanied a fisheries crew as it shocked a small stream in one of these counties. The average angler wouldn't give it a second glance, but the survey crew, weighed, measured and returned to the stream more than a hundred prime browns. Some were over twenty inches long.

Brown trout spawn in the fall or early winter, so large fish, both male and female, often become very active towards autumn. Such small streams are one of your best late season bets for a large brown on a fly.