The Trout Stream in Autumn is a great example of why Birch was famous for being equally adept at fly fishing and landscape painting. The artist no doubt fished this very spot which The Times could have been describing when they wrote: "... to see him cast into the wind though a small opening in the bushes that fringed Lamorna steam was to witness a truly artistic performance …. His outdoor eye was especially sharp when painting water. He saw it with the understanding of both artist and fisherman.”

That sharp observation of rivers was in part translated onto canvas via a technique that Birch developed and encouraged his Newlyn students to follow and is much in evidence in the present work; namely the technique of dragging colour directly from the sky down into the rivers, tree trunks and other landscape elements.