I still spinfish more often than fly. On the local streams I kind of like high water for trout. They're not in all the usual holes, but you can be pretty certain if you make a presentation within a foot downstream of a rock or still water pocket, they will be holding there when the water is moving fast.

Walk into the water up to your knees. If you can't see your feet, it is called "bar water"....off to the local bar.

I have to agree with Countitanddone. The runs in the sierra can be difficult to fish. I thinking more of the smaller rivers (streams) with a major run off of 500-600 and no more than 30' across. The water rushing snakes through a major valley, around 20 miles long, but the twisting and turning lengthens it out to more like 60. Since the river flows in these 'twisting' pattern my most success comes when fishing off the points of the turns. I position myself up stream on the side I believe the fish are. The fish will often lie in the lee side of the turn, waiting for some treat to flow past. I use a streamer, swimming it as if it is injured fish, playing it in the eddies with a down stream presentation, allowing the flies to travel where they will.
I've never heard of the double rigging named the Brooks method (Please give ref. where I may locate 411 on this), but I too have success with indicator and nymph, fished close to the bottom where the water tends not to be so filled with floating stuff. I find the deeper you can go the less 'muddied' the waters. Often we'll use very small dark midges!

Use a big streamer or use exactly what the fish are eating. Cuz they have to eat whether it's muddy or not

swinging streamers like the steel guys do.

Also, big stonefly nymphs along the banks edges durring runoff work great for browns.

I got for the big and ugly. First I'll try some big buggy nymphs tight to the bank, then dark streamers (double bunny big) and if I do see some fish coming to the surface, I'll fish a dark dry.

Hey fflutterffly, good post & you get a +1 from this cowboy. The late Charles Brooks of West Yellowstone, Montana, came up with this rig. His technique employs heavy tackle and the constant cast and airborne or water mend leaves your forearm limp after a day searching for CA browns. But they are big and worth the work. So, here:
*11ft switch rod 8wt OR 9ft 9wt tip flex two-handed rod
*1X to 0X, 3ft leader
*3 to 4 split shot, PSS 3/0 or 4/0 crimped 8 inches up the leader, tied with a knot so they won't slide down
*Duncan Loop a size 2 to 6 Wooly Bugger, Hellgrammite
or Charles Brooks Stone or Skunk Hair Caddis
Remember your target species...large browns, down deep,
will not take small midge or nymph patterns. It's all about energy expended by these slabs for a meal in off-
color, stained run off fast water.

The reference material is illustrated with text in a book I bought in 1998 called Fly Fishing for Trout IN
STREAMS. I checked for you and can be had at Amazon.com

Like JOHN ANDERSON I prefer terrestrials,on dry or wet patterns both may work well..

Here is an experience I had yesterday on the SF of the Snake. We floated 8 miles of river is high water, not that off colored, but what can happen on high water, and off colored water, is COLD temps.
And temperature can be the key. We got one fish to the boat using a double nymph rig below a "thing-a-mabob" I caught the fish anchored up in a sweet looking riffle that dropped in deep, on a bead-headed soft-hackle that I got down deep. When we took out at the ramp, there was a small jetboat guy and his buddy that came in that we saw anchored up in a slow water spot...he said he caught at least 50 trout!!!!..on what I asked?..nitecrawlers right on the bottom. They wouldn't even move to take a spinner fished deep. And that is what can happen during higher, cold water especially...make it dirty, and you have "bar water" if you have to search for fish. And for me?..fishing a nymph using split shot, and getting on the bottom gets old in a hurry after you break off several times.

In Colorado, the runoff can get crazy but the hatches are still there. So I match the hatch or throw on a terrestrial and fish right off the banks.

LjRguide
I like that technique as a producer. To my way of thinking, and it isn't necessarily true. There is a lot of unscientific aspects to fly fishing that comes across as science, but here is my observation/thinking. The fish doesn't necessarily see it as a crawfish...the key is movement. That is why I'd like a woolly bugger as well as a realistic crawfish pattern..both need movement, and if you are going to lose them a bugger is easier to tie than many crawfish patterns I see tied. We can say the fish took it as a crawfish, or a fish took it as a leach, but the key is movement. We often make up what the fish took it for. My frustration, and some don't fret, is the snags you get, and breakoffs...new tippets needing to be tied as well as flies, and shot needed. The real toughie is the combination of high colored water, and cold water...fish don't move much to take the fly, and can't see it very far away anyway.
But you do what you have to do, and I like what you do.