The Ultimate Brookie Box?

[Wildbrowntrout]

Probably my most favorite thing to do is to go fly fishing for brookies. Whenever I go out, I usually just tie on a standard elk hair caddis and bring a few to hand. My question is, (just to liven up the experience), what kind of flies, nymphs, dries, streamers, etc. would be good choices to include in my "Brookie Box"? I want to fill up a brook trout patterned MFC Poly Box with all these good flies and see what I can do this coming spring and summer! Hopefully I can inspire some others to do the same. Thanks

 

[Dave_W]

Wildbrowntrout wrote:
My question is, (just to liven up the experience), what kind of flies, nymphs, dries, streamers, etc. would be good choices to include in my "Brookie Box"? I want to fill up a brook trout patterned MFC Poly Box with all these good flies and see what I can do this coming spring and summer!

You should fill up your brookie box with whatever patterns you have the most confidence in...just vary them a bit by size and color.

For example: tie up a bunch of elk hair caddis, but mix and match colors. Tie some with white deer hair and maybe a few with chartruese. Tie a few in siz 16 with an orange fur body and a few in size #10 with white or black bodies and some contrasting color wings. Maybe try a few with orange hackle. This sort of approach.

For your nymphs, tie them in mostly bright colors but vary them by weight. Have a line in your box of your favorite nymph with unweighted patterns, then the next row would be the same pattern with a small bead, and then the next row the same pattern with a heavy bead. I like bright colored beads for my brookie nymphs, mainly chartruese and orange.

I don't fish streamers much for mountain brookies. However, have some small streamers in whatever pattern you like. Keep 'em on the small side (not much more than an inch in length) and mix and match colors. Olive, black, white, and mixed, will cover the bases.

Personally, I fish for mountain brookies mostly with a hopper dropper system. I like a bright colored wet fly under a big, bouyant, dry fly. For these dries, I like foam bodied stuff. However, you will want to keep these big dries on the smaller side to improve hookup ratio.

 

[dryflyguy]

I use beetles almost exclusively for brookies - #12 and #14. All summer and into autumn.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

I like small buggers with a hot-colored beadhead.

 

[redietz]

My go-to brookie flies are Renegades, Humpies (which I'd rather buy than tie, you're probably better off with the EHC), Bivisibles and Royal Wullfs. Under the surface, I've never found it necessary to use anything more complicated than a Partridge and Orange. Of course, I use most of those flies for other trout as well, but I would feel confident on a small brookie stream with nothing but those.

As Dave_W said, those just use whatever you have the most confidence in.

 

[Swattie87]

I have a Brookie box. It's a small size foam box. It's mostly dries...all of which are in size 12 and 14...Wulffs in varying colors, Adams Parachutes, and EHC. It has maybe a half dozen attractor nymphs, Prince's mostly, and a few Micro-Buggers...as FI mentioned, keep them small. It's a pretty simple fly box really. These are flies that I have confidence in, but nearly anything reasonable will work. Fish what you like.

 

[troutbert]

Stimulators for when the water is high. Size 14 is the size I use the most, but also size 12 when the water is really up.

I love fishing size 16 Stimmies, because they work well when the water is not really high, but tying them is a pain (or challenge?). But shops sell them.

The body color I have most confidence in is yellow. Second best, a rusty tan brown color. Other colors probably work too, but those are the only two colors I use.

I think yellow works well because a lot of freestone streams have stoneflies with yellow bodies, the golden stoneflies, the yellow sallies. And in the summer and early fall, when I usually fish these, there are light colored mayflies around too.

These are not just brookie flies, they work on freestone browns as well. And cutthroats. Or whatever.

They just work great on freestone streams, wherever the flow has some speed and some chop.

I don't really fish them on flat water, but I've seen people fish them on very slow, quiet water and the trout hit them. I was amazed.

When I first heard about Stimulators, I thought well that's just a minor variation of an elk hair caddis. But there really is a difference. It's very much worthwhile having both EHC (especially for the smaller sizes) and Stimmies (especially for the larger sizes).

 

[Prospector]

Yellow body Elk Hair Caddis
Yellow body Humpy
Royal Wulff Dry
Royal Coachman wet
Pheasant Tail Nymph (plain and beadhead)
Sizes 14 or 16

The humpy and Wulff are very effective dries but the Elk Hair Caddis has a better hook up rate for me. I think no tail is the key. I also tie my EHC with yellow foam bodies and I generally can catch about 30 fish before the fly is too beat up and must be retired.

 

[jifigz]

Wild brookies are generally really easy. Elk hair caddis, various nymphs, small Chernobyl ants and other beetle and realistic ant pattern and you're pretty much set. I would always add a bright pink San Juan worm, though. Sometimes they work magic on brookies..

 

[fwh14]

I started fishing mountain brookies with a buddy of mine this year and chose to fish a basic foam ant pattern. It seemed to work for me and the hook up ratio wasn't to bad. The pattern was cinnamon size medium foam body with some brown fly hackle.

 

[JoeE]

Mostly size 14 but a few 16’s. Adams, orange ant, black ant, Royal Wulff, Mr. Rapidan, Sulphur Parachute, woodchuck dry, pheasant tail dry. Nymphs. Pheasant tail and Hares ear and one streamer a small Black Nose Dace. The little streams I fish are usually are too small to fish nymphs and streamers but I take a few just in case. That is all the room I have in my brookie Chestbox.

 

[FarmerDave]

Lots of good suggestions.

The brookie streams I used to frequent were not very fertile, so the fish were aggressive and not selective. As long as you don't spook the fish, you are gonna catch some.

In addition to previous suggestions, I once had a very good day using a small streamer made with Lady Amherst neck feathers. The white with black stripes. I have no idea what the name of the fly was, because it came in a package deal.

Large wet fly might be a more accurate description than streamer.

I should have saved my last one.

I guess what I am saying is flashy works.

 

[afishinado]

From reading all the posts above, load your box with all types of dries, wets, streamers, and terrestrials in all different sizes and colors...
Sounds like a regular fly box to me!

Plus it proves, since you guys all catch fish and all these varied type flies and patterns and colors and sizes....the fly choice really doesn't matter much...:lol:

I wouldn't sweat the pattern or type of fly.

Make sure it's very visible on the water (to you) since your fly will be cast into fast riffled water as well as in small dark coochie holes in and near the cover.

Choose a fly the floats well without having to dry it off and add floatant every time you catch a fish...you'll likely catch a lot of them.

Is durable.....you'll likely catch a lot of them

Is cheap to buy and/or simple to tie....you'll likely catch a lot of them and your flies will get torn up, or meet it's maker in a tree or bush.

Just carry a small box with some simple dries, a few nymphs, wets and small streamers.

When fishing, I suggest you fish a single dry fly first, most times that's all it takes, plus you can toss it anywhere and will not have to worry about getting snagged on the bottom.

You can try a dry dropper if need be, but you odds of getting snagged go up, it's a little harder to cast, and you double the untangling time and rerigging time when you do snag something and the number of flies you use.

Think > Float high and easy to tie!

 

[NewSal]

tan EHC, soft hackle PT

 

[tomgamber]

i won't even fish for brookies with anything subsurface. probably missing out. they are just so aggressive to dries i usually use an elkhair and skitter it or a royal wulff. usually a 14 or 16 for both.

 

[k-bob]

echoing what dave said, brookies are just aggressive feeders.. very much so compared to browns... compared to browns, brookies are all day aggressive feeders at that.

I once asked a true PA stream entomology expert who fishes whether the type of dry fly matters for small stream brookies, he laughed and said "no."

I like dry flies generally and they are good for brookies in small, infertile headwaters streams... headwaters streams are infertile/ have relatively few aquatic bugs because PA rain is so acidic. even where the bedrock has some buffering capacity (monroe or pike county catskill bedrock is higher buffering than for ex. the pocono or burgoon bedrock in parts of NW luzerne), the acidity will be higher/'have been less buffered' in headwaters.

with more acidity in headwaters, there aren't as many hatches, and the brookies survive heavily on whatever terrestrial falls in. fly pattern, color, or size doesn't matter as much as it would with many brown trout. (browns are less acid tolerant than brookies, so less common in headwaters, and more likely to be where they have hatches to key on.)

headwaters PA brookies aren't so much "a river runs through it" as "a bug falls in it." since the fly pattern doesn't matter much with brookies, I just go for flies that float and cast well and are easy to see, so I can cast from as far back as possible.

imho, spooking fish is a bigger issue than having the wrong size or type of fly. for ex., in low clear fall water, the brookies may be in the back of pools. can fish from further back w extra hi-viz dry fly.

these days I fish these flies

http://www.orvis.com/p/skilton-quick-sight-ant/0128

with a dab of safety orange testors paint over the white part to add visibility from as far back as possible. just tweak fly size for stream size by nipping off some foam.

 

[troutbert]

There was an article back in the early 1990s or so by a skilled PA flyfisher about brookie fishing that was really good.

It mentioned all of the standard truisms about brookie fishing:

1) You only need short casts.

2) You only short, stout leaders.

3) It makes no difference what fly you use.

Then said: these things are all wrong. People say these things a lot, but they simply don't match what we've seen on the brookie streams.

I read that and thought, EXACTLY! I've always been puzzled by those statements too. They never seemed right to me.

Medium and even long casts are often useful.

Medium and long leaders are often useful.

And the type of fly can often make a huge difference. So it's good to carry a good variety. It's important to have some different "categories" of flies:

Big Bushies: Whether that's Stimulators or something else, like a Humpy, isn't so important, but it's important to have some in this general category, for high and/or broken water.

Parachutes: Extremely versatile, work well in a wide range of conditions. From pretty low through the medium flows to pretty high. Very good when there are mayflies around. And there are often are some, sometimes a lot. Not all brookie streams are infertile. Two main body color variations are needed: Mediumish (hares ear tan) Lightish: Yellow

Elkhair caddis - Because...you gotta have EHC. I don't think you need many variations though. Tan body. Size 14 and 16. That'll do it, but put a lot of those in the box.

Terrestrials - In the summer and early fall, when the water gets low and clear, terrestrials will usually outfish anything else. Ants, beetles, inchworms.

Subsurface: Standard streamer, wetfly, and nymph patterns. No need to get fancy or carry lots of them, but just carry some of the standards, for when the brookies aren't hitting on top.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

Size 16 mahogany parachute with snowshoe post.

 

[STONEMAN]

patriot fly. Easy to see. Floats well. Makes you proud.

 

[SteveG]

As echoed above, most "brookie streams" aren't fertile enough to warrant exact imitations. Many times dappled sunlight makes visibility tough, so I like dries with contrasting colors like hi-vis foam beetles, Renegades, and Bivisibles (all of these are durable too, in regard to getting caught in trees lol). A few beadhead nymphs work well to fish deeper pools without using split shot. Just this year I started carrying a few small streamers to swing into log jams and areas where I'm either unable to get a cast or decent drift.

I use a soft 4wt with a hand tied 10' 4x leader that has a stout butt, and practically casts itself. The same leader is used when I'm fishing midges or or other small stuff on spring creeks, just with some additional 5-6x added on.