Native Brookies-Nothing Personal...

Awsome video! The only times I ever see a brookie is either when I catch one or when I spook one and I see it dart away
 
Thanks guys. I think I am going to have to take another trip back there. This time I'll probably nymph, and be sure to be stealthy and look for fish. Thanks,

Gaeron
 
PSUFishMenace, that is a neat little video clip! Actually, I thought the brookie was pretty easy to see. A great depiction of their spookyness. Thanks.
 
gaeronf wrote:
Hey. I know a bunch of you fish for natives. I, on the other hand, haven't even fished for a wild, let alone a native. I don't really have an idea of what I am getting into. I have my suspicions about 1 little stream, so I am not going to ask you for locations (I wouldn't anyway). Here's the Q: What do you guys normally fish? Dries? Nymphs? Streamers? And in what sizes...Thanks a bunch

Gaeron
Click to expand...

Fishing for native brookies, I use dry flies most of the time. Most of these are small forested streams, such as you find in state forests and gamelands.

You walk upstream and cast dry flies up into likely pockets and pools, and keep moving covering a lot of distance.

When the water is cold, often they won't hit dries, so that's when you go to subsurface flies, such as nymphs and streamers.

But in the summer, they'll usually hit dries.

The first thing is to find a stream that actually holds brookies of course. Some areas of the state have brookies in nearly every small forested stream. In other parts of the state, there are large areas with no brookies at all.

A while back a guy on here from the Pittsburgh area was just trying one small stream after another near Pittsburgh, hoping to find wild trout in places where they just don't exist. Don't do that.

Step 1: Find a stream that has actually supports native brookies.
Step 2: Throw a dry fly (such as a #14 parachute adams or a beetle pattern) and catch them.
 
As for your step 1. I am not asking for locations, because that is just not right. I am asking how you come about the locations? Is there a book or something? Thanks,

Gaeron
 
there is a list on pfbcs site with class a streams... i would start there. If none are in the county you prefer to fish and do not want to travel, then you could look at the natural reproduction list, but this can be tiring, as to be classified as a stream with natural repro, all you need in a shock survey is one wild fish.

I would fish some class a's... no matter where you live in this state, an hours drive will put you on a class a.
 
I thank the lord that my favorite wild brook stream is classified as a 'b'...

it fishes better and bigger fish than most a's.
 
gaeronf wrote:
As for your step 1. I am not asking for locations, because that is just not right. I am asking how you come about the locations? Is there a book or something? Thanks,

Gaeron
Click to expand...

I don't know what part of the state you're located in. Things are very different in different parts of the state.

But as other people said the PFBC website shows Class A streams, wilderness streams, and the natural reproduction list, and these shows thousands of wild trout streams. Streams do not have to be Class A to provide good fishing.

Good brookie fishing is usually found in areas where the watershed is predominately forested. Such as state forests and game lands.


 
Gaeron,
I'll second the suggestion that you go to the PFBC website and check the Class A and Wilderness lists (type these into the search box on the site):

www.fish.state.ps.us

There are plenty in your neck of the woods. As for the Natural Reproduction list, this one's tougher since the list includes the entire stream even though natural repro is usually found only in the headwaters. The biologists need only find two trout, one of which must be a young of the year fingerling. Also, this list lists the stream by county using the county where the mouth of the stream is located. So you might have a stream in Centre County that you suspect has wild trout but if the stream's mouth is in Clinton Co then the stream will be listed in Clinton, not Centre. This had me confused. Good luck with your brookie hunting.
Dave
 
Wow that is a GREAT video. Good job!
 
Yeah, I pretty much ignore the class A list and go with the natural repro list. That said, some of them are duds, and some are pretty good.

But most of my favorite brookie waters are not Class A. In fact, I can only think of one or two that I commonly fish that are class A. In my opinion, holding yourself hostage to the class A list is handicapping yourself and making yourself travel far further than you really have to.

It's true that non class A streams can have very low populations. But also consider that these trout populations go up and down like the wind, and they may only sample them once every 20 years or so. Just cause it was class A quality in 1985 doesn't mean it is now, and just cause it wasn't then doesn't mean it isn't now!

Get the natural repro list. Cross reference it with a decent map, even google maps works for most. Go explore. If you hit a dud, don't go back. If you get into some fish, start exploring the stream to find different areas of it, it may be better up or down, etc.
 
For me its all dry flies all the time... well almost. 90% of your WT Streams will be no deeper than 3 feet. If i am finding that the fish will not come up then I add a dropper nymph. I never nymph and I seldom fish streamers.

The challenge in this kind of fishing is not finding fish. That is easy to do. Any water that looks "fishy" will hold at least one fish. What makes it difficult is presenting the fly to the fish. As others have said, these fish have the tendency to be spooky. I have literally crawled on my belly in order to position myself for a cast I knew would be the only one to that spot. On both of those occasions I have caught the fish I would have otherwise missed.

Crawling is extreme but not always uncalled for. The majority of your time will be spent on your knees, crouched behind rocks, or reaching around a corner. Think of it as a hunt.

Finding a stream is as simple as pulling over to a likely trickle of water. Worst case scenario there are no fish, best case though, you may find an unexploited gem. So explore.

Buy yourself a DeLorme map and cross reference with the internet. My map has every stream In my region highlighted and categorized by biomass.

Last of all, think but dont over think. If you are not having success go back over what you have been doing, find the problem, and work towards fixing it. But in the end, they are just fish, and their brains are the size of a pea.
 
BrookieBuster101 wrote:
For me its all dry flies all the time... well almost. 90% of your WT Streams will be no deeper than 3 feet. If i am finding that the fish will not come up then I add a dropper nymph. I never nymph and I seldom fish streamers.

The challenge in this kind of fishing is not finding fish. That is easy to do. Any water that looks "fishy" will hold at least one fish. What makes it difficult is presenting the fly to the fish. As others have said, these fish have the tendency to be spooky. I have literally crawled on my belly in order to position myself for a cast I knew would be the only one to that spot. On both of those occasions I have caught the fish I would have otherwise missed.

Crawling is extreme but not always uncalled for. The majority of your time will be spent on your knees, crouched behind rocks, or reaching around a corner. Think of it as a hunt.

Finding a stream is as simple as pulling over to a likely trickle of water. Worst case scenario there are no fish, best case though, you may find an unexploited gem. So explore.

Buy yourself a DeLorme map and cross reference with the internet. My map has every stream In my region highlighted and categorized by biomass.

Last of all, think but dont over think. If you are not having success go back over what you have been doing, find the problem, and work towards fixing it. But in the end, they are just fish, and their brains are the size of a pea.
Click to expand...

Since you fish dries, what are the top 5 dries you use? And maybe a recipe for one or two of those...
 
If you are looking for something simple to tie that is an absolutely killer fly:

Foam ant

They work great for wild browns too. I was fishing a little stonefly nymph this morning and caught nothing but chubs for two hours. I lost that fly, tied on one of these, and fished through water that was basically identical to what I had been nymphing all morning. I caught 3 wild browns in 20 mins after I started using the ant. I don't know why I bother using anything else.
 
My go to pattern is a very simple caddis; size 16 hook, a tan dubbing body, and a coastal deer hair wing. There are no bells or whistles on this fly.

Lately I have gotten tired of catching all of the 3-4 inch fish so I have been fishing the Q-Tip. Its more bulky and only the larger fish can fit it in their mouths. It also floats like a cork so its great for dry/dropper. Just work some frogs fanny into the fibers and it will float all day.
Q-Tip

Ill throw a parachute or a beetle here and there, but seeing your fly is key. Anything HI-Vis works well. Try Klinkhammers or stimulators. Like I said finding fish is not the challenge, Its all in the presentation.
 
So even when you see 0 fish rising, you catch fish on dries?
 
you betcha.
 
Wow. Next time I go I will have to try that.
 
Good stuff. Yup, brookies are eager to come up for dries in water as deep as 3-4', which is 95% of all brookie streams (if you find one with deeper holes, guard it with your life).

Any pattern will usually work, but a high floating, durable, and unsinkable one is best. In the summer, I often use a foam beetle or ant with a fluro orange post. BB, that Q-tip fly from Loren W. looks great!

You can fling your fly in tight places without hanging up on the bottom. During tuff times I too add a nymph as a dropper, but it's seldom needed on brookie streams.
 
So even when you see 0 fish rising, you catch fish on dries?
Click to expand...

On freestone brookie streams, I very rarely see natural rises, and when I do, it's usually one here and there rather than a steady drumbeat like you'd associate with hatches on more famous waters. Yet, dries are my favorite way to catch them.

Think about it, these fish are opportunistic. They'll take on top, underneath, whatever. If they see food, they eat it! There are exceptions, but thats the general rule, it truly doesn't matter what you use as long as you don't spook them first.

So for the fishermen, the job is to figure out how to get them a fly without spooking them first. IMO, that means dry flies. I can cast them better, fish them farther, hang up less, etc.
 
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