"It's a brown!" my buddy called out with a song in his voice, and I could see him perk up as he fought the fish. The trout wasn't of spectacular size -- maybe 12 inches -- but its golden flash revealed that it was a brown trout, and my friend was basking in the extra satisfaction that comes from coaxing cautious browns from their secret hiding places.

My buddy and I often fish together in the Chattooga River watershed and value every trout we catch -- whether stocked or wild, rainbow, brook or brown, small or big. However, we have an undeniable bias toward browns. Added wariness makes a brown a greater prize in our minds, and we know that when we target brown trout, we increase our odds of hooking into a big wild fish.

Brown trout are far more apt to grow to larger sizes than rainbow trout in Southern Appalachian streams, partly because the dietary preferences of brown trout vary slightly from those of, for example, rainbows. Browns largely abandon aquatic insects and other small bites upon reaching adulthood, turning to crawfish and various small fish. In addition, browns generally live longer than rainbows in our streams. Even small creeks occasionally produce large brown trout, and big rivers like the Chattooga, with its massive pools, hold quite a few fish that are better measured in pounds than inches.

Brown trout aren't native to South Carolina. In fact, they are European immigrants, not native to the United States. However, wild populations have been in several mountain streams for decades. In addition to stream fisheries, Lake Jocassee, which has been stocked with brown trout since the lake was impounded in the 1970s, stands as one of the South's premier brown trout destinations.

Veteran anglers know that browns are a different kind of trout and require unique approaches. They lurk in deep boulder-filled runs, well-defined eddies and tangles of timber, favoring thick cover, refuge from current and plenty of shade. They feed best early and late and on cloudy or even drizzly days, and they are far more cautious than their rainbow-colored cousins. Because browns favor large menu items, plugs tend to outproduce spinners, and streamers offer greater chances for big browns than do dry flies or traditional nymphs. Now let's explore some of the waters that South Carolina brown trout call home.

LAKE JOCASSEE
For high-quality brown trout, Lake Jocassee is without rival in South Carolina. Browns, which make up about 80 percent of the trout catch, average about 3 pounds on South Carolina's most mountainous lake, and anglers fairly commonly bring in trout up to about 8 pounds, according to Ken Sloan, owner of Jocassee Outdoor Center and a guide on the lake.

Lake Jocassee gets stocked annually with 40,000 sub-legal-sized brown trout, which grow very well on a diet of threadfin shad and blueback herring. Growth averages 1 inch per month for the first year after trout are stocked. Creel surveys reveal that anglers harvest several thousand Jocassee browns annually and that harvested fish average 3 1/2 pounds, according to Dan Rankin, upstate fisheries biologist for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.