Nice write up and pictures. I recognize the stream...I fished it once in late May in what should've been primo conditions. I caught a handful of small Brookies and one small Brown, but felt like it should've fished better. I remember missing a real nice one that I believe was a 10" or better Brookie though.
Sounds like it fished pretty well for you...a warming trend in late Fall/early Winter can turn em' on sometimes, and with 60ish air temperatures I'm not surprised they took dries.
That trail along it was a bit of a curse for me the day I fished it...I kept pressing on knowing I essentially had a superhighway to walk back on. I ended up burning a whole day fishing way upstream when the better move on that day was probably to cut bait and go somewhere else.
