Swattie87
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,594
By really deep holes, I mean the nicest, biggest, deepest ones on the stream. On decent (or better) Brookie streams, I usually find that these holes have a fairly consistent mix of fish...one or two 7-8 inchers, a bunch of 4-6 inchers, and a few dinks that managed to get just big enough to avoid being eaten by the alphas of the hole. You obviously only catch a couple out of the hole each trip, but adding up my experiences, this seems about right...again on Brookie streams with at least decent populations...Class B or better I guess.
But every once in a while I come across a hole that's a real head-scratcher. There should be fish there, but there aren't, or at least I can't catch them. As I've gotten more confident in my fishing I've come to realize that a possible explanation for this is that there may only be one fish in that hole...albeit a big one. If most fish in the stream top out at 7-8" then these are the holes were the 10+ inchers live. Even if I'm fishing dries I often make it a point with these holes (where I've struggled in the past) to take the time to tie on a small weighted streamer for the first few casts...just in case.
One of the streams I fished today has a hole like this. I've fished it 3 or 4 times in the last two years and have never gotten a single hit in the biggest, deepest hole on the stream. Well today my suspicions were confirmed...PB wild freestone Brookie...13". Very subtle take on a dead drifted size 14 BH Bugger...just felt like a snag until she shook her head.
But every once in a while I come across a hole that's a real head-scratcher. There should be fish there, but there aren't, or at least I can't catch them. As I've gotten more confident in my fishing I've come to realize that a possible explanation for this is that there may only be one fish in that hole...albeit a big one. If most fish in the stream top out at 7-8" then these are the holes were the 10+ inchers live. Even if I'm fishing dries I often make it a point with these holes (where I've struggled in the past) to take the time to tie on a small weighted streamer for the first few casts...just in case.
One of the streams I fished today has a hole like this. I've fished it 3 or 4 times in the last two years and have never gotten a single hit in the biggest, deepest hole on the stream. Well today my suspicions were confirmed...PB wild freestone Brookie...13". Very subtle take on a dead drifted size 14 BH Bugger...just felt like a snag until she shook her head.