Water Clarity: Clear-Greenish
Water Temperatures: 34-40
Hatches: A few midges and winter stones, snowflakes
Suggested Patterns: Zebra Midges-#18-20, Small P Tails, Small Copper Johns, Montana Prince Nymphs, Girdle Bugs, Kaufman Stones, Spanish Bullets #14-16, Frenchies, Squirmies, Mops, Small Jig Streamers
Hopefully everyone’s been able to hit the rivers over the past few weeks! We’ve been getting out more and more and have been running into some pretty nice fish. Not many, but that’s not much of a surprise. We’ve been fishing a handful of Winooski and Lamoille tribs running into some really nice wild browns. The smaller fish don’t seem to be active but if you can find a bigger fish you’ve got a good shot at getting them to eat a nymph or smaller streamer. We’ve been getting our fish either nymphing with stoneflies, worm and mop flies or dead drifting smaller, heavy jigheaded streamers. Both tightline and bobber fishing have their place right now. A few of the fish we’ve gotten have been in big deep pools where we’ve been unable to get close enough to with a euro set up. The fish don’t seem to be overly fussy right now when it comes to flies, it’s just a function of finding a fish willing to bite. Water temps have been relatively cool, anywhere from 36-41 so be sure to adjust your depth and make sure your flies are getting deep as the fish likely won’t move to far to eat a fly. Sean fished a small mountain stream the other day and ran into a pile of hungry brook trout once the air temps warmed up a bit. All the fish he got were all on nymphs and small jighead streamers.
The steelhead runs have picked up a bit over the past week and a half, there are fish in the usual tribs off Champlain as well as Magog. This snow may slow things down for a few days but the added run off should help keep the flows good through the week. From a fly standpoint pink worms, egg patterns and smaller black stones always seem to work well during the first part of the steelhead run. As water temps warm up the fish will be a little more willing to chase a streamer.
For anyone thinking about getting out this week, GO! Don’t over think it. Just go fish.
On another note we’ve been getting tons of inventory in lately, we’ve gotten some new rods, reels, fly lines and a pile of other cool stuff that would look really nice in your arsenal!
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