River Conditions: 5/7/17

Water Clarity: Ranging from Clear to Muddy

Water Temperatures:  42-53

Hatches: Black Stoneflies, Caddis

Suggested Patterns: Wooly Buggers (Black or White-#4-#8) Zonkers (Natural, Olive or Black) Montana Mouthwash, Sex Dungeons, Copper Johns (Chart. #12-14) Pheasant Tails (#12-14) Montana Prince (#12) Hare’s Ear Nymphs (#12), Black Stonefly Nymphs (#6-10)

Not a whole lot has changed over the past few days. The water temps are lingering in the upper 40’s with the cooler air temps and streamers have still been the ticket for our area. Pretty much every stream around is up, most of them are fishable though. The Lamoille looked like it was definitely fishable today if you had a bigger streamer and a sink tip. Water is up and is pretty dark but not completely shot. The Winooski is another story. If we don’t get that much rain over the next few days it may start to clear up but we’ll see. VTFWD has been busy stocking lots of stretches of rivers including the trophy stretch of the Winooksi and lots of other bodies of water as well. Those fish will take a little time to get used to the higher flows. The Lewis has been fishing pretty well for bass and there have still been some Steelhead being caught as well. The weather forecast has not changed from last week and it looks like we’re in for a soggy couple of weeks. Not ideal but there are some spots where it will definitely improve the fishing as well. Big fish like dirty water. Do yourself a favor and grad a St Croix Mojo Bass rod and a sink tip and throw some big streamers. These are the conditions that usually give up the best fish of the year. It’s a quality over quantity game this time of the year. Right now the Clyde is at 705 CFS which is definitely up there but it’s probably still fishable. The section above the Clyde Street bridge will open up this week and with flows where they’re at right now there should be some happy Salmon putty the feed bag on right now. Classic Streamer patterns tend to work well up there in the spring as do Olive Nymphs such as Hare’s Ears and Bird of Prey in Olive. Make sure you don’t forget your San Juan worms either. That can be a killer “fly” for LLS out of Magog. Locally over the next few days the Dog could be a good place to check out in the falling water with some BIG flies. Guys have still been getting into some fish below the Waterbury Rez on both nymphs and streamers. White streamers tend to be a good color down there to imitate smelt. Stoneflies and San Juans along with a classic Pheasant Tail have done well for us this time of the year down there in past years as well. Good luck to all of the anglers getting out there over the next few days! On a side note, be on the lookout for ticks, I was scouting a spot for turkey hunting along the Lamoille yesterday evening and in the five minutes we spent walking the rail trail we ended up with three on the two of us despite the fact that we didn’t sit or crawl through anything. Looks like it’s gonna be a bad year for them. Keep and eye out when you’re getting done fishing!

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