Do Brown Trout Like The Crowningshield?

I started out this morning with the intention of fishing a section of stream that I have not fished since early October. The winter has been very hard and I did not know what to expect. The stream has wild populations of both brook and brown trout, but this section primarily holds browns. The fly I selected to start with was the Crowningshield dry, as it turned out it was the only fly used today.

Like always I check the water temp, which was a cool 60. The brook was covered with shade with some sun poking through.I'm not fooling when I say they hammered that Crowningshield fly. On the first cast the fly did not even move when a brown rose and was hooked.

I'm going to let the photos tell most of the story.

These browns were strong.

As the fly drifted near the bank...oh man.

There was a rise at the middle of this pool. The fly drifted and wham.

This is what took the fly. My best wild brown this year. He ran the pool from top to bottom and side to side. My glass 3wt had a battle to win. Eventually the brown took me into a snag and was hung up. I had to wade over and free him up.

I laid him alongside the rod to try to get a measurement, he was a very nice fish.

A very overworked Crowningshield fly.