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Brown trout in Virginia
Salmo trutta — introduced to Virginia, holding water between 54 and 66°F. Virginia's own fisheries records name 20 waters here, and the state stocks it into 20 more.
Virginia's brown trout is introduced and it holds the middle: below the brook trout headwaters, above the warm valley rivers. DWR's coldwater layer carries a brown column, and the waters it names here are that middle ground — the Smith River, the Rose, Laurel Fork up on the high plateau, Big Laurel Creek, Big Reed Island Creek and Rock Castle Creek off the Blue Ridge escarpment. Twenty more are designated stocked waters.
Eight to sixteen inches, holding 54 to 66°F and tolerating 75 — a band wide enough to include water this map paints cool, which is water the native brook trout has already left. Virginia sets no size limit by species; the class the water carries is the rule, and there are eight of them plus other trout water.
- 54–66°FWater, preferred
- 8–16"Typical length
- IntroducedIn Virginia
- 20Waters listed here
What it is
Salmonidae — true trout, genus Salmo · Salmo trutta
- Butter-brown to bronze flanks, paling to cream on the belly.
- Black and rust-red spots, most of them ringed in a pale halo — spots on a light ground, where a brook trout carries light marks on a dark ground.
- No vermiculations on the back, and no white-and-black edge on the lower fins.
- Tail square to very slightly forked, and largely unspotted.
Typical length in Virginia is 8 to 16 inches. That is a curated range for water of this kind, not an average of any survey: MDNR's abundance file counts fish per acre and per mile and records no lengths at all, and no other state on this site publishes lengths either.
Native or stocked
Introduced. Holds the middle elevations — the water below the brook trout headwaters and above the warm valley rivers — and reproduces wild in a good deal of it.
Where to find it in Virginia
Waters VDWR records this species from, off the coldwater classification layer that rides on every reach in this map's Virginia footprint. Miles are of classified reach carrying the species, and the watershed is named because Virginia has five Mill Creeks and eleven Dry Runs.
| Water | Watershed | Classified miles | Class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith River | Roanoke and Dan headwaters | 10.0 | Class ii — wild |
| Rose River | Rapidan-Upper Rappahannock | 8.8 | Class i — wild, self-sustaining |
| Laurel Fork | Virginia Potomac highlands | 8.4 | Class ii — wild |
| Big Laurel Creek | New River basin | 7.5 | Class ii — wild |
| Big Reed Island Creek | New River basin | 7.3 | Class ii — wild |
| Snake Creek | New River basin | 7.2 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Rock Castle Creek | Roanoke and Dan headwaters | 6.7 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| North Fork Greasy Creek | New River basin | 5.8 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| East Fork Crooked Creek | New River basin | 5.7 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Polebridge Creek | Roanoke and Dan headwaters | 5.4 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Hughes River | Rapidan-Upper Rappahannock | 4.4 | Class i — wild, self-sustaining |
| Turkey Fork | New River basin | 4.2 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Smith Branch | Upper James and Maury | 4.1 | Class ii — wild |
| Oldfield Creek | New River basin | 3.6 | Class ii — wild |
| Tory Creek | New River basin | 3.5 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Burks Fork | New River basin | 3.4 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Round Meadow Creek | Roanoke and Dan headwaters | 3.4 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| South Fork Moormans River | Middle James and Rivanna | 3.4 | Class iii — wild, limited |
| Staley Creek | Holston River headwaters | 3.4 | Class vi |
| Cowardin Run | Upper James and Maury | 3.3 | Class ii — wild |
Waters Virginia stocks it into
VDWR's designated stocked-trout waters, with the designation each one carries.
- Accotink Creek delayed harvest
- Back Creek put-and-take
- Back Creek put-and-take
- Back Creek (DH) delayed harvest
- Bever Creek special regulation
- Big Cedar Creek put-and-take
- Big Tumbling Creek fly fishing only
- Big Wilson Creek put-and-take
- Brumley Creek special regulation
- Buffalo Creek special regulation
- Bullpasture River put-and-take
- Burks Fork put-and-take
- Comers Creek put-and-take
- Conway River special regulation
- Cowpasture River put-and-take
- Cranesnest River put-and-take
- Cressy Creek put-and-take
- Dan River (Below Powerhouse) put-and-take
- Devil's Ditch special regulation
- Dismal River Section A put-and-take
Where that is on the map
Every subwatershed this site covers in Virginia as a faint dot, and the ones holding the waters listed above lit. A coverage map with this species on it — the map on the front of the site is the map.
When to fish for it
Brown trout hold 54–66°F water and are under real stress above 75°F. On this map's own colours that band is cold, cold-transitional, cool water, which is what the river pages and the live map are painting when they run green and blue. The season follows the temperature rather than the calendar: the water is in the band early and late in the day through the summer, and all day either side of it.
Spawning: Late October into December, on gravel riffles, later in the season than the rainbow and overlapping the brook trout.
What is hatching in Virginia, month by month, from the same seed the app's hatch panel reasons from. These are the state's recorded hatches, not this species' — trout eat what is in the water.
| Month | Peaking |
|---|---|
| January | Aquatic Worm, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Hellgrammite, Leech, Little Black Stonefly and 5 more |
| February | Aquatic Worm, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Hellgrammite, Leech, Little Black Stonefly and 6 more |
| March | Aquatic Worm, Blue-Winged Olive, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Hellgrammite, Leech and 8 more |
| April | Aquatic Worm, Blackfly, Blue Quill, Blue-Winged Olive, Cranefly, Damselfly and 15 more |
| May | Alderfly, Aquatic Worm, Blackfly, Blue Quill, Blue-Winged Olive, Caterpillar and 26 more |
| June | Alderfly, Aquatic Worm, Black Ant, Blackfly, Caterpillar, Cranefly and 30 more |
| July | Annual Cicada, Aquatic Worm, Black Ant, Caterpillar, Crayfish, Cream Cahill and 26 more |
| August | Annual Cicada, Aquatic Worm, Black Ant, Caterpillar, Cinnamon Flying Ant, Crayfish and 24 more |
| September | Aquatic Worm, Black Ant, Blue-Winged Olive, Caterpillar, Cinnamon Flying Ant, Cranefly and 21 more |
| October | Aquatic Worm, Blue-Winged Olive, Cranefly, Crayfish, Cricket, Damselfly and 12 more |
| November | Aquatic Worm, Blue-Winged Olive, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Hellgrammite, Leech and 6 more |
| December | Aquatic Worm, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Hellgrammite, Leech, Midge and 4 more |
How to catch it
Larger and slightly warmer water than brook trout will hold: undercut banks, logjams, deep bends and the shaded seams under cover. The most nocturnal of the five.
Patterns from this site's book, chosen by the insects recorded from Virginia's own regions and filtered to the kinds worth putting in front of this fish. Each one has its tying recipe.
- Hare's Ear Nymph nymph · #10–18 — Alderfly, Black Ant, Cream Cahill
- Pheasant Tail Nymph nymph · #12–22 — Blue Quill, Blue-Winged Olive, Damselfly
- Parachute Adams dry fly · #12–20 — Blue Quill, Blue-Winged Olive, Hendrickson
- Chubby Chernobyl dry fly · #8–14 — Annual Cicada, Giant Black Stonefly (Salmonfly), Golden Stonefly
- Foam Beetle terrestrial · #12–18 — Black Ant, Cricket, Grasshopper
- Prince Nymph nymph · #10–18 — Green Sedge, Isonychia / Slate Drake, Little Black Stonefly
- Elk Hair Caddis dry fly · #12–20 — Grannom, Green Sedge, Little Black Caddis
- RS2 emerger · #16–24 — Blue Quill, Blue-Winged Olive, Midge
- Rusty Spinner dry fly · #14–20 — Cream Cahill, Isonychia / Slate Drake, Light Cahill
- Stimulator dry fly · #8–16 — Golden Stonefly, Green Drake, June Bug / Beetle
- Griffith's Gnat dry fly · #18–24 — Blackfly, Midge, Cinnamon Flying Ant
- Partridge & Orange Soft Hackle wet fly · #12–18 — Alderfly, Little Black Caddis, Little Sister Caddis
Rules for brown trout in Virginia
Virginia does not publish its limits split by species: the bag and the season apply to trout as a group, by the class or category the water carries. So what follows is that, and not a brown trout rule dressed up as one. Snapshot taken 2026-08-16.
| Class | Bag | Season | Waters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class i — wild, self-sustaining | — | — | 31 |
| Class ii — wild | — | — | 360 |
| Class iii — wild, limited | — | — | 169 |
| Class iv — put-and-grow | — | — | 72 |
| Other trout water | — | — | 2 |
| Class v | — | — | 33 |
| Class vi | — | — | 115 |
| Class vii | — | — | 8 |
| Class viii | — | — | 11 |
The full Virginia regulation page →
Habitat notes
Larger and slightly warmer water than brook trout will hold: undercut banks, logjams, deep bends and the shaded seams under cover. The most nocturnal of the five.
- 54–66°F preferred
- 75°F upper limit
- cold, cold-transitional, cool on this map's colours
The four thermal classes named there are the ones every river on this site is painted with, at breaks of 58, 64 and 70°F. A river page showing cold water is showing water inside this fish's band; that is the whole point of the colour.
The other trout in Virginia
Brown trout in the other states
The same fish, on different water and under different rules. Michigan's sand-bottomed rivers, Wisconsin's driftless springs, Minnesota's North Shore, Virginia's mountain brook water and North Carolina's tailwaters and freestone gradient are five fisheries, and the limits differ with them.
Open the trout map →Every trout stream near you, coloured by today's water temperature.