Water Clarity: Clear
Water Temperatures: Upper 50s-Mid 60s
Hatches: Golden Stoneflies, Caddis Flies, PMDs, Light Cahils, Sulfurs, March Browns, Brown Drakes, Green Drakes
Suggested Patterns: Olive and Yellow Soft Hackles, Pheasant Tails (#12-18) Hare’s Ear #14-18) Bird of Prey-Olive #14-16) Golden Stoneflies (#8-10) Elk Hair Caddis Olive and Tan (#14-16) Tan X Caddis (#14-18) Parachute Adams (#12-18) CDC Sulfur (#16-18) CDC PMDS (#14-18) Wooly Buggers-Olive (#8-10) Zonkers-Olive and Natural (#4-8) Sculpin Olive or Tan, El Sculpito-Tan (#1)
We’ve continued to have some great fishing over the past few days. Seeing some Brown Drakes in the evenings as well as Cahils, Sulfurs and Caddis flies. The dry fly fishing has been pretty good in the evenings in certain spots. Still been getting most of our action nymphing along with some streamer fishing here and there. As the water levels have dropped and cleared we’ve downsized our flies to more realistically imitate what’s in the rivers. Downsizing tippet size has also helped us out. We’re forecasted to get some rain this evening and tomorrow, it’s anyone’s guess as to how much rain we actually end up getting. Every forecast I’ve seen has said something different. Both the Winooski and Lamoille have dropped quite a bit in water level so a little up tick in flow wouldn’t even be a bad things. It may just give us a good opportunity at some muddy water browns tomorrow evening and maybe Friday morning.
If you’re nymphing it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run a yellow or olive colored soft hackle off the back of whatever your main fly is. On a trip the other day probably 85% of the fish we caught were on a sulfurish colored #16 soft hackle. Little to no tail, yellow body and a partridge soft hackle collar. After drifting the fly, by holding your rod at the end of the trip or just slowing flies down by slightly holding back the drift you can allow these soft hackles to kick up off the bottom and slowly rise through the water column which can be deadly. We caught multiple fish by doing this that I doubt would’ve taken a dead drifted fly. The majority of our fishing has remained on the larger rivers, both the Lamoille and Winooski have ranged from 61-65 degrees which is great, the rain we’re getting tomorrow followed by slightly cooler temps should keep those temps in that range. The brook trout fishing is good as well, although as we’ve mentioned before, you’ve got all summer to catch rookies so you might as well take advantage of better conditions on the bigger rivers. Be sure to bring a thermometer with you over the next week as temps may start to get up there on the lower to mid sections of both the Winooski and Lamoille.
The bass fishing has been pretty good when we’ve been able to get out as well, the smaller males are still hanging out on the beds while the larger females have moved off to slightly deeper water for the most part. Depths of 8-15ft have seemed to be where the majority of the larger fish are. This applies to more of the inland lakes, on Champlain due to the cooler water some of the bigger females may still be on their beds as well. We’ve gotten a few reports that the hex hatch is on as well! Seems early given the late and wet spring we’ve had but we’ll welcome it! Nothing like catching big bass and trout on dry flies in the middle of a lake! Good luck to everyone getting out over the next few days!
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River: Winooski
Water Temp: 62
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 06-19-2019
USGS FI: 396 @ Montpelier
River: Dog
Water Temp: 61
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 06-19-2019
USGS FI: 93.6 @ Falls
River: Lamoille
Water Temp: 64
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 06-19-2019
USGS FI: 278 @ Johnson