Do you have a special pool?

wildtrout2

wildtrout2

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There's a certain remote brookie stream I fish several times each year, and on it there's a smallish pool right above a very old (early 1900's), broken down dam. Almost every time I fish it I catch a really nice native. I'm talking 10", 11", and once a 12" brookie. It seems it's usually the only trout in the pool. The only reason I can think of for this happening is that food sort of gets stopped/slowed because of the slow flow over the dam? I always look forward to getting to this spot! Thoughts are welcome.

Wondering how many folks have a "special" pool/run on a given stream where you consistently catch a good trout?
 
I had one and then the wild fish population in the stream seemed to drop to almost none. 😕
 
And that pool came through again today with this 9" native! Almost never lets me down.
 

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This omnious looking spot almost every year holds a large wild brown,, the local folk keep taking em out every year...... but one seems to move in shortly thereafter.
 

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Mine is quite different, and I don't believe spot burning it matters at all: the last pool on the Brodhead at Pinebrook Park. Easy access, often just stockies, and known to just about everyone who cares to know.

It's special to me, though, both because it's one of the spots where I first really understood why an evening hatch is meaningful, and it was amazing fishing at an early point in my fly fishing learning curve that generated tons of momentum.

Some friends and I used to call it "The Gloryhole". The last few times I've been there it hasn't been as good due to some large trees falling and high water events changing the flow, but I still love it.

Though it's a little overly reliant on stocking, I still think of Brodhead as one of my gold standard Eastern trout streams based on access and variety of water. This hole was formative in that thinking, for better or worse.
 
Not so much a pool but a seam on the Lehigh that is really only fishable/accessible when flows are <300. It's always a race between the water dropping enough to fish it, and waters staying cool enough to ethically fish. Usually we get about a 1 week window of opportunity.

It always good for a big brown trout that is a sucker for a stonefly.
 
Oh yes. My family, in fact, has a "honey hole". I rarely fish it now, as since the passing of my brother it's become "sacred ground" in a sense, but I'll still walk to it maybe once a year.
 
I have quite a few of them on Penns Creek in the Poe Paddy to Ingleby area. The Special Spots are every place that I have memories of fishing with my Dad. We had a lot of good days on that section back when it was stocked and then again later when I got Dad back into fly fishing. Anytime I would ask him to go along in the Ole' Mingle Road he was ready to go. Man, I miss Dad and I miss the Mingle Road.
 
I have a wild trout stream I fish regularly where I named all the pools in the days when I kept a fishing log.

One of the pools I named "Old Reliable" because no matter what, fish are always rising and I always catch a few, including a 19" brown last year on a dry fly.

I also have a favorite up on Cross Fork where I always catch one or two large wild fish.
 
Almost every stream I fish regularly has at least one or two pools that almost always seem to have rising fish.
So much so, that when I first get to the stream, I check these old reliable spots out first thing.
And if by some chance, nothing is rising there, I don't even bother checking out the rest of the stream.
Being quite confident that I'd find nothing there also
 
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