flies for the fall

i'm just returning to fly fishing after many years of fishing cats and carp and i'm looking for help. i now realize i have no idea how to catch a trout anymore. can anyone give me an idea of what sort of flies work best this time of year. i have managed to get a few small trout out of a few local creeks but for the most part they come up, look at the fly and swim away. i've tried every fly in my box and am at my witts end. some people have told me to use woolly buggers (trout repellent) or nymphs, which i have caught a few on. but nothing has worked well. any pointers would be greatly appreciated. 

A bead head prince nymph is my number 1 fly. One of the tricks to fly fishing for trout is to use burnt orange color flies in the fall. A gentleman in a flyshop up in the Catskills told me that, and over the years its proved to be good advice. I don't know if you tie flies, or know someone who can tie a few, but a favorite fall fly of mine is a burnt orange sinking ant. I tie them like this, after the flies I bought in that shop up in NY:

Hook: Nymph hook, size 16
Bead: Small gold bead
Thread: Red 8/0
Abdomen: Ball of burnt orange colored dubbing
Legs: small black rubber legs, one piece tied on either side of the hook at the center of the leg, so you end up with 4 "legs". Leave the red thread wraps over the legs visible as a waist between the abdomen and thorax
Thorax: ball of burnt orange dubbing.

Streamers are a good bet in the fall as well. This is the time of year when forage fish are maturing and getting bigger, so a streamer thats a couple inches long matches a natural food source.

I love to use Gold-Ribbed hares ear nymphs, pheasant tails, bright chartreuse caddis nymphs,  beadtail caddis, bigger sculpins, wooly buggers and of course------the Glo Bug---some of the biggest rainbows I have caught came during the fall and winter months on glo bug patterns......I have even caught some honker browns on glo bugs........one day on the Savage River in Maryland----water was high, air was cold.......tied on an orange glo-bug and whacked brown after brown........I went back to the fly shop and asked for more glo bugs......he said WHY?  I said the browns chewed em' all up.........he said browns??  I go yes, on the Savage---he started laughing, then sold me some "steelhead sized" glo bugs........I can still hear him laughing !!!! 
 
PS...here is a double whammy and sure to upset some:
 
globug and drop a san juan worm off it  ---  worm in pink
this is a killer setup if you know there are rainbows around

ORIGINAL: 2Bonthewater

PS...here is a double whammy and sure to upset some:

globug and drop a san juan worm off it  ---  worm in pink
this is a killer setup if you know there are rainbows around

Nothing wrong with the happy meal combo

ORIGINAL: LoganWade03

ORIGINAL: norm289

ORIGINAL: LoganWade03

x2 on the prince nymph and the orange, my main 2 flies for fall and winter are a flash back prince tied with orange peacock hearl, and a pheasant tail tied with a hot orange bead...big in the fall, small in the winter 

Agreed on the orange PT. I do not use a hot orange bead on the ones I tie. I prefer to just use a lead underbody and I use orange ice dub for the thorax.

I tie those too...just started this past winter experimenting with ice dub for thorax orange and chartreuse, stockies love them

With the ice dub, there is a color called "steelie blue", try that, trust me, k?

holy s#$! thanks everyone. i had totally stopped paying attention to this post. i will certainly be trying as many suggestions as i can get tied. fortunately i'm off for a month so i have all the time in the world. if anyone is down with hitting the yough around ramcat run. pm me. all my fishin fiends are still working during the day. 

So on this subject im heading to walnut tonight with my father and wondering when morning breaks what would serve me best to bend my 4wt with some steel??

This time of year terrestrials are very good. Size 12 black ants, either made of foam or deerhair. Beetle patterns. Small hoppers and crickets. And sinking green inchworms.