Bill you have to be sadistic to pass up sinking a fly deep in deepest brookie holes. Buy some split shot man!

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Naw - not when there are many more good dry fly holesjust upstream
Split shot gives me the heebie jeebies. Reminds me of my worm fishing days

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I have found this to be the case more often than not. So many times I've come across a big pool (usually below a falls) where I "knew" I was going to hook into a good trout and didn't. lol I asked about this a while back and got the "one big trout" theory, which I put stock (NO PUN) in.
Congrats on that fine looking brookie!

Beautiful fish.

Yes, most streams have a hole or two like this. And yes, the explanation is just 1 or 2 big fish. However, more often than not in my experiences, that fish is a brown, not a brookie. Streams where I've never caught a brown, seem to have that 1 or 2 in spots like this.

Great fish, really impressive.

The reason you can't catch a brookies there is because there is a very large recalcitrant brown in the bottom of the hole and since he rules, no one else dares go there. The only other reason is there is a very big recalcitrant brookies in the bottom of the hole and he ain't moving.

Definition of RECALCITRANT
1: obstinately defiant of authority or restraint
2 a : difficult to manage or operate
b : not responsive to treatment

I would have chosen Stubborn or Obstinate, Chaz-a-roony...but I agree.

I just like the word, Conundrum is another word I like. like I said an obstenately defiant brown. Hey I can use that too.

Wow what a fish! Definitely wild imo. Agree with what others have said about these types of pools. My PB brookie took over a plunge pool that held 5 or 6 6-8" fish the year before I caught the big one...it wasn't THAT big though, just shy of 11". That reminds me, I still haven't caught a 10" brookie on the fly rod- that one took a spinner (only thing that could punch through the current and get to his depth).

I have observed this on a number of occasions, and its rewarding to finally prove your observation by catching the fish. I've found that "large" is often relative to the size and location of the stream. A 10 - 14" brookie is a large fish in some locations (Lancaster County, for instance); a 17" brown is a small fish in many locations but is a nice sized fish for some streams I fish here as well.

The first two pictures are of a hole that should have a whole school of fish in it. There's usually a little guy that lives under the rock that has a tree growing on it in the foreground of the first picture. The second picture is taken from the vicinity of the tree in the foreground of the first picture; the large rock on the left is undercut, and there are plenty of smaller rocks up near the waterfall for cover. But up in the flow, I have never really caught anything, until finally catching the bully of the hole last Wednesday. She taped out at 10".

The next set of pictures is one of the better holes on another stream that usually has one other smaller fish that chases anything, but is too nice of a hole to only have that fish living in it. It is about a three to four foot bowl; the left rock is deeply undercut and the two rocks sticking up in the foreground mark the bottom part of the bowl. I finally landed the bully of that hole last year. It also was 10" but was a much fatter fish than the one I caught last Wednesday (although of course they were from different streams). This year, I caught a smaller fish there, so I'm thinking the bigger fish may have succumbed over the summer.

The last batch of photos is from a drainage in NC PA. It is mixed brown/brookie habitat, but in the holes where I have never caught fish, my bet is on there being a big brownie there since that is what has turned up in holes where I have caught bigger fish.

IMG_1696 - 15" brown (2007), 21" brown at night (2008), 13" brown at night (2011); have seen a handful of brook trout, caught maybe one or two over a 10 year period, but its a huge hole and should be loaded with fish; it has a nice batch of suckers, nay brownie snacks, that live in it and is the perfect hole for growing a very large brown trout on a small freestone stream.

IMG_1723 - deep undercut root system that gave up a 18" brown in 2009; in 2010 and 2011, it was teeming with smaller fish, indicating the bruiser was gone

IMG_2921 - beautiful, deep hole; who knows how far back under the rock the water goes; have NEVER seen a fish in this hole

IMG_3061 - a bit of an anomaly; this hole teemed with fish AND had at least one 18"+ fish in it in 2010 that chased but wouldn't commit

IMG_3049 - deep hole; hard to fish, had a 18"+ fish in it in 2010 that also chased but wouldn't commit (more of a factor of the fisherman not paying attention and about crapping his pants when it darted out after the offering!)

061807 151 - I believe I finally saw and caught one small fish out of this hole last year, but in five years prior to that, nada...

To me, this is one of the more interesting aspects of fishing; first, its being outsmarted by a fish that has grown wise enough over its four or five years of life to not show its face right away; second, its going back the next year and (in some cases) outsmarting the fish by catching it; third, its going back the next year to find that the cycle has completed itself and a hole devoid of fish is now full of them, indicating the fish died or moved on for some reason. There's a wild card involved, I think, from the floods last fall. While many fish survived, I believe that some fish perished in the floods, and thats why some holes are dead this year.

Jim Bashline called these fish "sharks"; I like the idea of The Alpha Fish, or The Bully.

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Salmonoid,
Those are really nice pics. I guess when you read my PM, you'll know I think the other post was real.
For the rest of you: Chalk this up to my computer illiteracy.

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I call them the Pool Boss.

Beautiful fish, swattie.
I'll add a quick story here that you may enjoy.

During one of the Jams some years ago, I was fishing a long pool, maybe 50' long or so. About midway through the pool, a few trout were rising steadily. I started casting into the back end of the pool and figured I'd work my way upstream. Many casts and nothing biting. Took two steps forward and noticed the risers, still a good 15-20 feet upstream from me, stopped rising. "Crap", I thought to myself. I must have spooked them when I disturbed the pool. Then I saw a shadow go across the streambed. A monster trout (pool boss for sure) swam across stream to the center of the pool and slowly sank behind a large rock until I couldn't see him anymore. Funny, the water doesn't seem that deep here. As I worked my way upstream, I noticed a few risers, this time further toward the head of the pool. As soon as I passed the rock (even though I was 15' to the left of it) the risers stopped. By now I had figured out that I was spooking the pool boss and he/she would simply move upstream, and in turn force the little guys to go feed elsewhere. So with this knowledge, I decided since I probably won't get a shot at any fish from this pool, I'd go check out the hole behind the rock. My 8' 6" rod would not touch the bottom. I was shocked. This huge hole was in the middle of a relatively shallow stream. Upon further investigating, I discovered the stream seemed to have changed it course within the last few years, after a large tree fell across it, first flowing around the tree's rootball, and then, once the tree broke free, flowing on both sides. The rock, a few feet up from the hole, created a vortex that prevented the hole from being filled in with silt. A really nice place to live if you're a trout.
Sadly, I never got to fish that pool again. And if I did, you can bet I would have tied on as much weight as possible and sank a WB into that hole

Ok, so maybe it wasn't a "quick" story

peace-tony c.

salmonoid - Great pics and breakdown. It's amazing how these tiny trickles can form such massive (and deep) pools sometimes. After seeing the first pic (IMG 368) I was expecting a much larger stream feeding that pool than is revealed in IMG 367. Your fish in IMG 1837 has a very similar color tone to mine (although I'm pretty certain they're from different watersheds)...both large females I believe though.

Tony - I know exactly what you mean with those vortex holes. The fish in this post came from more of your classic plunge pool, but I know another stream (even smaller than the one in this post) that has an (at least) waist deep vortex pool in it. The odd part is that the surface area of the pool is only about the size of a garbage can lid though...very difficult to get a fly in there, and then down there. I'm pretty sure it was formed when high flows eroded around and dislodged a large boulder. The resulting waterfall falls about 2' straight down and carved out a hole in the sandstone streambed. Come to think of it...I've never caught a fish out of that hole...hmmm.

nice story Swattie, sure is neat when the puzzle pieces fall into place.

When I first ran across this stretch of water, could never raise a fish to a dry the first few times I tried it. Not out in the open water, not along that downed tree with the nice overhead cover, the pool just seemed devoid of trout for some reason.


Then there were some high water events that changed things from one year to the next. That downed tree on the far bank got moved on downstream a ways, but there was still a nice undercut rootball to provide a home for something. Got way lucky and hit it just right one early morning and figured out why there were no brookies along this particular stretch.


This big old brown sipped a little stimulator no questions asked that morning, and answered plenty of questions for why this pool had been so unproductive over the years...have also tangled with one or two other smaller though still good sized browns since then.


The curious part is that I've also caught one of my biggest natives at the very head of that long stretch, right where the water deepens but still has some texture to the surface, wonder how big of a brookie this stream could grow if it weren't for those 'dirty browns'?


Of course, this is more typical or what you find along the length of this stream, that big pool is pretty much an anomoly, always worth it to see what around the next bend: