Water Clarity: Clear-May Dirty up depending on rain
Water Temperatures: 55-65
Hatches: Brown and Gold Stones. Tan/Olive Caddis, Hendricksons, Sulfurs, Cahils, Brown and Green Drakes (Soon)
Suggested Patterns: Kaufman Stones #12-14, Trina’s Micro Stone (#14-16) Anderson’s Bird of Prey-Olive (#14-16) Formula 2 Caddis, Pheasant Tails (#12-14), Hare’s Ears (14-18) Soft Hackles! (#12-16) Rusty Spinners (#12-16) Parachute Adams (#10-16) Light Cahils #12-16) Elk Hair Caddis-Olive #14-16) X-Caddis-Tan (#12-18)
The fishing has been great lately! We’ve been running into fish on dries, nymphs and swinging soft hackles. We’ve been focusing on the Winooski and Lamoille for the most part, running into a mix of Wild and Stocked fish. The dry fly fishing has been the best in the early morning then again in the afternoon. We’ve been seeing a good amount of Caddis flies in the AM, a mix of Tan and Olive. In the afternoon it’s been a mix of Hendricksons, Sulfurs, a few Cahils and Caddis. The other evening the fish were keying in on the Hendricksons more than anything, we fished some caddis patterns with no luck, as soon as we tied on a rusty spinner it was game on. 4 fish in the first 4 casts. During the non hatch periods, the nymphing has been great. A mix of Mayfly and Caddisfly imitations have yielded lots of fish as well as swinging soft hackles!
AM temps on the bigger rivers have been hovering around 57-61 and PM temps have been 63-65 from what we’ve seen. With the rain in the forecast that should hopefully drop a little although those temps aren’t too bad. We do have a couple of warmer days coming up but we should be ok with the rain coming in. The vast majority of next week looks pretty good, a few days in the 60s and a few days in the 70s with cooler night time temps. With the rain we’re supposed to see tomorrow, some things may come up in water level a bit, it’s hard to say as the rain has been very localized lately. If the water does come up, streams like the dog, the Gihon, North Branch etc… will be good options to fish some bigger flies. The biggest fish of the year come from after heavy rain storms. Usually on big gaudy streamers fished with a sink-tip. If the water levels on the big rivers are affected tomorrow then have at them! It should be a great weekend to fish regardless!
Last but not least, the bass fishing has been pretty good. We’re seeing lots of males protecting the nests on the Rez. Looks like the females have dropped off the beds which they do once they spawn and should be feeding pretty heavily. Usually they’re not too farm from the beds, typically holding in slightly deeper water adjacent to the beds. A sink tip and a clouser or bugger is a great way to target some bigger.
For anyone getting out there this weekend be sure to have a few plans in mind. If we see a lot of rain, as mentioned above the Winooski and Lamoille may not be an option tomorrow morning. I’d imagine by Sunday afternoon they’ll be great. If that happens and trout are the target species hit the mid sized streams with bigger flies or venture up into the higher elevation streams and chase brook trout. The brookies are in full on feeding mode and the fishing has been good with dries. If the flows come up, they may be more eager to eat a smaller streamer of a nymph but most if not all of the brookie streams will be fishable.
Good luck to everyone getting out this weekend!!
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River: Winooski
Water Temp: 61AM
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 5/27/22
USGS FI: 305
River: Dog
Water Temp: 59
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 5/27/22
USGS FI: 69.2
River: Lamoille
Water Temp:59am
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 5/27/22
USGS FI: 349