First Surprise
About a year ago I was up at a youth camp in the mountains of north Georgia and (to my surprise) located some wild trout in the stream on the premises. I use the term 'mountains' loosely here, because a) this is Georgia, and our southern Appalachians are mere foothills compared to many larger ranges, and b) I was really in the foothills of these foothills.
Nonetheless, there is a steep mountain at camp, with a great lookout and solid camping spot up top, and there is a dammed-up stream at the camp too, forming a small pond. Given the elevation of this area I wouldn't have thought the stream capable of supporting rainbow trout reproduction.
In reality, I think the pond dam and the resulting 'tailwater' is actually key.
A few people had told me over the years visiting this camp that there were some fish to be had in the stream that accompanies your drive in, but honestly I dismissed it...figured they meant warmwater species. I didn't hardly think they meant trout. And later when I found out they did, I couldn't believe they meant anything but some stocked trout.
Eventually, I decided to bring my little 8ft 4 weight with me for a weekend visiting this camp. I stole away one afternoon, down to the meandering stream, maybe 3 feet at it's deepest. There's one main pool really, without much overhanging tree cover except for the high canopy of hardwoods way above. In this section the banks have been basically cleared right along the stream's edge .
I tied on a little yellow and dark brown nymph, with a brown tuft of fur at it's tail, and a dry fly above it of some sort. I didn't know what the fly was called at the time. Turned out the water was too shallow for the dry to even touch the water, so I was basically tightlining, with my dry suspended off the water. Ciest la vie.
After fishing the top few riffles of the stream, I realized I was headed downstream towards what looked like the best pool. I stopped and walked a wide line out, away from the stream, to approach this pool from below. Fish face upstream. Stepping back up to the bank, crouching low so as not to be seen, I started hitting the pool with my yellow-jacket like nymph. Within a few drifts, I had something! A tiny little rainbow nailed the fly and I stuck him. Now the frantic fighting from my underpowered friend ensued.
I went on to catch 8 or 10 rainbows out of that pool that day (and a creek chub or two). This was one of my first experiences catching wild fish though, and at the time didn't realize I wasn't catching stockers. They had beautiful markings and vivid colors, and it wasn't until later that I realized the telling signs of these being stream born fish.