Home Forums Fishing Freshwater What is your favorite method to catch Brookies?

Brookies are my favorite freshwater [eating] fish. I've had good luck catching them with a dry fly behind a bobber, or a bright yellow brass Panther Martin (red body w/ yellow spots).

For those who like a brookie dinner now and then,
What is your favorite dependable fly or lure for catching them?

This

Natives: redworms dug up from the garden on a size 12 hook and a split shot.

Stockies: Waxworms

Nothing beats exploring spring Appalachia with an ultra light spinning outfit.

Not a fly or a lure but I agree with TomM1. If you want a meal of Brook trout it's hard to beat worms.

I know you said lure, but I seldom use lures for stream fishing trout. Here's my go to method-

11/2"-2" shiner minnows, salted and drifted through likely eddies and undercuts hooked through the head on a single #10 or #12 hook with as small of a split-shot as will do the job.

If I DO use a lure, it's usually a small Mepps, or very small Johnson's silver minnow.

If I'm sure to eat them I am with the others when it comes to worms. Otherwise, Panther Martins

Nymphing half a nightcrawler on a #8 or 10 hook is my favorite spinning method for catching Browns and 'Bows at lower elevations. And the first time I was introduced to Brookies by a couple uncles, we used weedless Colorado spinners with nightcrawlers.

Thanks!, for reminding me of what should have been obvious!

Back in the 60's, while on a deer hunting trip to Colorado, we came on some beaver ponds that were absolutely full of brookies. The water was crystal clear, and some of them looked to be about 6 or 7 pounds.

The following July, myself and 2 friends went back out there, to fish the ponds.

I used a fly rod with dry flies. IIRC, I used an Adams and a Royal Coachman. It didn't seem to make much difference.

My friends used Mepps.

One seemed to work as good as the other, and we caught and released brookies until we tired of it.

I've caught more trout on Kastmasters I think than anything else. Silver or brook trout color...they can't resist that slow wobble.

Very tiny spinners, most often Panther Martin, orange, black. I have had good luck also with 5/8" daredevil.
I have some Bimbo Gifford Skunk panfish baits I will try with a bobber for weight soon.
I fish a lot with my BIL on the streams he was raised around , he has caught more Brookies than I can ever dream about. However, he is a wormer. I help him dig 'em , but I never use them. I will cast 3-4 times and scoot down to the next hole while he futzzes around with 1 worm.
I have to sneak a couple brookies into his creel when we head home, so he will think his ol worms are doing the job.

Cisco

In the Sierras a crawdad imitation works when everything else fails.

Back in the seventies when I worked for the D&RGWRR out of Grand County Colorado I was a very unsophisticated fisherman as I still am and found worms to work well. Up on the Gore in the beaver dam country you played the game of making sure your shadow behaved. This might entail getting down on your hands and knees. Maybe it was a waste of time but I'd like to remember it the way it happened. Like I said, I'm unsophisticated.