Decided a week ago that it was finally time for me to take my first vacation day ever(graduated in may and company policy didnt allow me any days until Jan1st). Went to Meadow Run and had to compete with senior citizen day. I had a missed hookset and a fish land on the first three casts and immediately assumed I was going to kill it and have a 80 fish day--wrong. I spent the next two hours without look. I eventually moved away from the crowds and fished some super skinny water, that looked to be moving entirely too fast for fish to be holding, but I figured I would give it a go. Ended up hooking up left and right in ankle deep riffles. This led to the second first of the day which was my first grand slam on one stream. Yeah, yeah, they were stockies and holdovers, but it was still entertaining. I decided to give the meadow run residents a break and headed to dunbar where I received the icing for the day. I only had an hour at dunbar, so I was racing around like it was a bass tournament. In one run I had two fish rise to my indicator and clearly not give a darn about my tandem nymphs. It was at this point that I figured I would give a dry fly a chance. Now, I have maybe casted a dry ten times on a trout stream in my life. I gave it a go twice when I was at psu and fishing spring. Well, I was promptly schooled by several rising fish, so I went back to fishing walt's worm and nailing fish both times. It had been a year since my last dry fly rejection humbling, and I decided to tie on a black ant. My second drift towards some decent looking fish in the tail of the run resulted in this little guy slamming my ant! First trout on a dry AND first wild brook trout. Pretty exciting stuff. I now see why everyone is so obsessed with fishing dries. I am not saying I have been converted, but I will consider tying on a dry next time--maybe.

Btw, how the hell do see and follow dries after casting them? I am 24 and rocking costa 580s and I was getting a migraine from trying to spot that ant from 35'

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Congrats, the reason I chose to become a flyfisher was because of dry fly action. When you dry fly fish enough you learn to pick up the fly faster and longer. I am absolutely blind and have no problem.

Get them or tie them with a post. I even used a paint pen on the backs of my beetles. Would probably help a little with ants if you don't have the post.

Just watch where the fly lands, and if you see a rise anywhere in that area of water, lift the rod. I now need bifocals, and still have no problem seeing rises.

congrats on your dry fly WT

Sounds like a good day to me. Congrats on the trifecta.

Congrats pwk, very nice Brookie.

Yeah, IMO dries are the way to go for native Brookies...provided the water is warm enough. I'll fish subsurface for them in Winter, but whenever possible I'll use dries.

As far as seeing the fly, the above advice regarding a post is a good start. Brookies in general aren't very picky, especially on smaller streams. If a stream has a decent hatch of a specific insect they can sometimes get tuned in to something in particular, but that's the exception to the rule I think. In general, for Brookie dry flies I just want something easy to see and that floats well...Royal Wulff, lighter EHC's, and Parachute Adams are my go to's. In your case, odds are that Brookie would have taken any of those flies too...all of which are easier to see than an ant.

Congrats, when you see them rising to your indicator tie on an egg pattern.