What can you do?

Sneaking up on trout during a hike.  Hope days like this are just around the corner. 

I'm ready for some bigger fish like this. 

I didn't go fishing this weekend.  Actually, I didn't even think about going.  I took one look at the Mississippi and thought  the trout streams would look about the same.  High, fast and chocolate brown.

Maybe I should have gone.  Catching trout under those conditions is tough but not impossible.  I walked the Kinnie a few years back around the same time of year.  I had never seen the river so high and off color.  I brought my rod down but I wasn't serious about fishing.  I stripped a wolly bugger across a few runs but got nothing.  I ran into a guy who said he got 4.  I couldn't believe it.  Then I saw him get one along the bank.  He was high sticking nymphs along the banks.  With the high water, the banks turned into the perfect spot for trout to get out of the current.  The banks were higher, since the water was up, and had more room for the fish to stack up.  I guess you learn something every time you go out.  It makes a lot of sense though but it's just hard to do the opposite of what you normally do on a stream.  Typically, I would be standing about a foot or two off the banks and cast to the deeper part of the pool or run and that would be where a majority of the fish are.  Now, I was standing where a majority of the fish were.  The center of the stream was a torrent of rushing water.  The fish were not out there, that would take way too much energy to maintain.  I'm going next weekend, high water or not.  Here is what I'm thinking for tactics, any of your ideas would be appreciated.  I haven't fished these conditions often so I could use some help.

I'm going to forget about dries until the water comes down. I am not, however, going to forget about emergers.  I think a lot of hatching insects just get tossed around in water like this.  I'm not going to go for the just below the surface film emerger type fishing.  I'm going to fish a two nymph rig with a small bead head (maybe with an extra split shot if the water is really moving) and a soft hackle emerger about 16 inches off the bend of my nymph.  If insects are hatching off the bottom I really don't think they could get up too high without getting swept down stream.  Plus, I doubt many fish will be darting out into that current very often.  We'll see how it goes.