Brookville

Made it over to the tailwater for a little high-water action. Though there was a slight snow falling and a little stain in some places the river was fishable, with wading dicey in most areas of direct current. I had only fished this river once, years ago in mid summer for about an hour as passing through and have not had a chance to explore too much. I do have a few insights into trout holding and feeding patterns and worked what looked like good runs.

Streamside drink

Some from the vault

River at 5'+

I started fishing streamer patterns to imitate the shocked shad that push trough the dam turbines, after only 2 moved fish in a few hours, I opted to move to an indicator nymph rig with a few confidence flies that usually produce. This was a good choice as I moved several nice fish the remainder of the day, getting some solid browns to hand in stiff current on 5x, no easy task for me.

Overall it seems there are some really quality fish in the river. The large brown was tough to handle and photo solo and buzzed, I opted to gently place the fish on damp streamside rocks as opposed to the one hand lift, where the fish could have crashed violently. I had to run to land the large fish after it bailed out the tail of the pool into the run below where I was able to swing it down for the land. Went down on one knee to avoid falling in 3’ of water and got pretty wet but it was totally worth it.

Hope to make it back soon.

Stroke