BM,
No question that 16" brooks are real nice fish.
I am a firm believer after having fished that stream for as long as I can remember that during the past 4 or so years, that stream gets heavily poached preseason. I have found no other explaination. Either me or my Dad usually both, have stocked that stream preseason every year. We used to kill them the 1st day. Until the last 4 years, when we' d go to a spot the 1st day and no one catches many fish at all, and you see very few caught. At first we thought cold water, etc etc. But after several years in a row if it happening and going to different stretches of the creek to see it, you suspect something funny. This year it was high and bad opening day, and they put a ton of fish in preseason. Should have had tons of fish left that 1st weekend. Everything you could do to find one or two fish. They weren' t there.
The reason there are so many now, is that it was stocked wednesday of last week. They did a good job and scattered em good over the length of the creek. There are a lot of fish left.

I' ve never tried one of them. I' m a cheapskate, can' t see spending 7$ on a lure Maybe I' ll break down and give it a try though.