Everything That Swims: Conway River Trout Fishing

This afternoon, my brother Wyatt and I headed to the Conway River in hopes of familiarizing ourselves with a) how to get there b) where the best fishing is and c) how the river should be fished. We decided to "power fish" with trout magnets, so we could cover water quickly and get an idea of where the best fishing for us is. We started somewhere way up the creek, it may have been Devils Ditch. To be honest, I have no idea exactly where we were, but there was flowing water, so we fished.
We landed a few 5-7" brookies there, but after an hour, we headed down the river in search of bigger fish... and browns. Once the stream had gained size, maybe 2 or 3 miles below where we started, we headed to the creek again. As usual, there were very tiny brookies swatting at the bait the whole time, but we decided to cover more water instead of getting our fly rods to catch them. We caught a few more small brookies, and Wyatt got a baby brown, but still no 10-15" brown we were searching for. Finally, I approached a small pool, and dipped my trout magnet into the water with no more that 3 feet of line out. There were no pecks or taps, the line just got heavy, and I set the hook. I saw that it was a good fish, and hopped down into the frothing whitewater to land it. The fish jumped 3 times in the 2 foot deep, 5 foot long, 4 foot wide pool, while I was standing in it! I finally managed to get a grip on him (forgot my net!!!) and pitched him up on the bank. I quickly grabbed a stick and hit him on the head 2 or 3 times, killing him so he wouldn't suffer. I probably saved a lot of yearling brookies by keeping the brown.
Wyatt and I fished a little longer, and I landed one more brown, another baby, and we headed out at 7:00. If we would have used flies instead of trout magnets, we could have easily landed 20+ fish each, but I only ended up with 5 brookies, and 2 browns. Still a pretty decent afternoon for a first time on the creek! We will be heading back, just not next weekend. I will be fishing for trout, just not any trout living in Virginia...So check my posts after next weekend, they should be interesting. Thanks for reading!