coast range river fly fishing

Fished a small coast range river for native cutthroat trout with a few of my friends today,   i had hit this same stream 2 days i a row before this one landing more then 3 fish each time on a dry (the weather was good)  but today it was a bit colder outside and fish were barely rising,  we fished dries for hours  with no success when my friend Dave says "this spot looks perfect for nymphing, i'm going to nymph". He tied on a very effective attractor pattern with a smaller dropper fly and casted. At the end of the drift on the first cast his indicator went under water and he set the ho fast and hard. The fish put up a hard fight for a short amount of time before i tailed it like a steelhead and handed it off to Dave so i could take a picture of it in his hands.  We Got a picture then released it,  as soon as that ended he tossed me the same 2 flies he used and   helped  guide me   with nymphing since i am a beginner at fly fishing,   i got the mend down and we  headed upstream to another deep spot perfect for heavy flies with extra weight and a long ass leader.  i casted, let it swing at the end and bam!! i set the hook and  the fish snapped me off, it was later discovered my surgeons knot was not tied very well. After  few more missed strikes we moved downriver to one last spot for the day, awesome looking water with a green color too it, perfect shelf at the drop off,  nice holding water. We fished there for quite a while with dave getting one missed fish, then he ties on a dry fly and heads to a more shallow pool,  fished it fora while and got a strike and missed it again!  action was starting to heat up at the warmest part of the day and it got exciting. I headed down below dave to a small run no deeper then 2 feet.  second cast i got a bite and missed it again.. these fish were catching us off guard!  i soon decided to go upstream to a nice nymphing slot i had my eye on,It gave me the feeling.  first 7 casts got nothing but stayed confident. then, at the end of my 8th cast at the middle of the drift my indicator went under and halfway across the stream before i stripped some line and lifted up to set the hook. My line was tight, fish on!!!! i yelled as Dave turns around to see my rod doubled over and a beautiful little cutthroat jumping,  as i got the fish in i saw he had taken my smaller bead head  rainbow prince nymph variation i was testing out and it had excellent results getting more then 3 bites on a small stretch of water. after getting a picture of the fish we released it  and  soon  headed upstream after rose hooked and lost 2 fish  in the spot me and Dave got nothing. First cast my indicator goes down hard! i set the hook, feel a head shake and gone!  do it again,  the aggressive fish goes for it again!! and i missed again.. little bastard was mouthing it not eating it! at least that's what i think.. anyways he took it again this time  really hard! i set the hook only to see a flash and a line without a double fly setup  come out of the water..  another failed surgeons knot.. AHH!!!  i tied on another flashy prince variation with flash wings instead of traditional white, and got hammered the first cast, miss it again..from there on out we had no more fish and called it a day. a great day   although we didn't catch alot of fish  fishing in general is a good day in my book. especially hen it's spent with friends. The picture on top is me and the second one is Dave with his beautiful native coastal cutthroat