River Conditions: 5/10/18

Water Clarity: Clear to Stained

Water Temperatures:  Mid 40s to right around 50

Hatches: Black Stoneflies, EGGS, Caddis and Hendricksons

Suggested Patterns: #12-14 Pheasant Tails, #12-14 Olive Hare’s Ears, Montana Prince Nymphs #12-14, Smethurts 20bomb #6-10, Kaufman Stone-Black #4-12, Glo Bugs, Copper Johns #12-14, Girdle Bugs #6-10, San Juan Worms, Sucker Spawn, Olive Elk Hair Caddis #12-14, Parachute Adams (#10-14) Wooly Buggers-Black or White #4-8, Zonkers-Black, Montana Mouthwash-White, Sculpin and other Baitfish Patterns.

The fishing has continued to pick up over the past few days. Water temps are starting to get to where they should be for this time of the year and the fish are taking notice. Along with that a lot of rivers are going to be getting stocked over the next week or so as well. The state has already hit some of the trophy sections so there’s going to be a lot more fish to go around. The Winooski is looking decent right now as is the Lamoille. Still off colored but most definitely fishable. Streamers and larger sized nymphs would be good choices in those rivers for the time being. Might see some Hendricksons coming off in the evening so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some dries with you. Seen a couple of good Caddis hatches as well, haven’t seen fish feed on them yet but they will at some point. These rivers should improve over the next few days provided we don’t get any significant rainfall. If you’re planing on fishing the Winooski this weekend, fish it from Waterbury upstream, there’s still going to be a lot more water moving below the Bolton dam making things a little trickier down there.

The mid sized streams have been fishing well lately too, not a lot of fish around but the ones that are have been pretty nice. The Dog has been fishing alright, we’ve landed some nice fish over the past week out of there as well as some other streams similar in size. I got a good one the other day on a Black Stonefly, definitely a productive fly this time of the year. It has been more of a game of hunting than just fishing on the Dog though, as it usually is. Cover a lot of water to find a fish in a spot you can get a fly to. Be cautious and look hard before casting. I walked up on a fish the other day that I thought was a log, pulled the bonhead move of assuming it wasn’t a fish and as I walked up to it the log swam away…

The warm water fishing is turning on as well, a lot of lakes and ponds have been fishing pretty well for bass. The Steelhead Run in the Kingdom has been pretty good lately as well, Champ tribs are starting to warm up quite a bit so the bass are starting to move in. A fun time of the year to be on the river close to the lake, Bass and Steelhead will be in the rivers for a while longer, as May progresses the Steelhead will start to drop back to the lake but the bass will typically remain there in full force for a while longer than the steelhead.

The weather’s looking pretty nice out there for the next week or so. Looked like we were going to get hit with some rain this weekend but it seems like that has changed!

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