River Conditions: 4/15/16

Water Clarity: Clear to stained, most bigger waters are running slightly off-colored with a green tint to them.

Water Temperatures:  Upper 30’s to low 40’s

Hatches: Brown Stoneflies, midge

Suggested Patterns:  San Juan Worms, Copper Johns, Two Tone Stone,  Egg Patterns, Black and Brown Stoneflies, Simple Stones, Wooly Buggers, Zonkers, Mouthwash, Philipe’s Flu Shot, Sparkle Minnows, Keller’s Nightmare, and Sculpin Patterns

The past week we’ve gotten mixed reports from many anglers. Most in our area are turning up empty handed with the trout. Not a huge surprise as the water is still pretty cold in our area. The anglers heading south of here and fishing for Steelhead are the ones who have been having more success. The steelhead fishing is on on in the NEK and guys are getting into some awesome fish! As far as trout fishing goes, this weekend things could pick up with the warmer weather. This should help heat the water up a couple degrees which could be a gamechanger. Bring two rods with you if you’re going to hit the rivers and have one rigged up with a sink-tip leader and a wooly bugger, zonker, muddler or big articulated fly and have the other rod rigged up to nymph with a Stonefly and a worm or egg pattern. Since you can fish mutiple flies in Vermont on one line you should! Having a realistic nymph with some sort of dropper pattern that’s more of an attractor pattern can be a good searching method for this time of the year. The water levels are all pretty good right now, the Winooski and Lamoille are up a bit but have good clarity and are definitely fishable. As for all the smaller streams, they are going to be fishable too, some might actually be a little on the low side right now. Some of the smaller streams are going to cloud up a bit in the afternoons because of snow melt depending on where you are. On the bigger rivers it will be much less noticeable and the afternoons are going to be the best time of the day to fish. This time of the year, a degree or two increase in water temperature can turn the fish on and although the action probably still won’t be fast and furious it can make the difference between catching fish and not. The Stoneflies have been coming off in the afternoons sporadically as well as some midge activity. The other afternoon I found a big midge hatch and I actually saw one fish rise twice which I was surprised to see in the upper 30 degree water. Temps are ranging between 37 and 44 depending on where you are. Good luck to those getting out this weekend. Let us know how you do!

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