Water Clarity: Clear to Stained
Water Temperatures: 50s-75
Hatches: Golden Stoneflies, Tan Caddis, Light Cahils, Sulfurs, PMDs, Hex, Hoppers, White Flies(Epheron), Tricos
Suggested Patterns: RS2 Tricos (#20-24) More Or Less Hoppers, Micro Chubbies, KK Henberry Hopper, Quick Sight Beetle, Ants, Light Cahils, CDC Sulphurs, PMDs, Pheasant Tails (#14-18) Soft Hackle Hare’s #14-16) Zug Bugs (#16-18) Caddis Emergers (#16-18) Bird Of Prey (#16) Soft Hackles-Light Yellow/Orange Zonkers, Wooly Buggers, Sex Dungeons, Muddlers, Hornbergs
We’ve had some great weather over the past few days and the forecast for the next week is looking quite awesome. Cool temps during the day, some rain and even cooler temps at night. With weather like this water temps should be in good shape in most of the rivers throughout our area. The Winooski is still on the upper end of the fishable temp range but should continue to cool off over the next few days with the rain. We are supposed to see a decent amount tomorrow afternoon and more on friday so the Winooski may mud up again. It’s just clear enough now to catch fish, about 3ft of visibility. We’ve been spending a good amount of time on the Lamoille over the past few days, great success catching a mix of stocked and wild fish. Earlier in the week when the water was a bit more off colored we did well swinging and stripping streamers. As the water cleared hoppers, cahils and smaller nymphs all yielded fish. If we do see significant rainfall over the next few days focus on the Lamoille this weekend. It tends to clear up much quicker than the Winooski. Lots of the smaller tribs will be fishable as well, even within 8 hours of a really heavy rainfall. We got out and fished a few smaller tribs earlier this week and did quite well. Tea colored water in the brook trout streams always seems to coincide with the best days of fishing we have on them all year. A small, yet gaudy dry will often draw interest in the higher flows. If you’re not having much action after three or four pools put on a small muddler, wooly bugger or hornberg. In the really smaller water we often prefer one BB split shot 6″ above the fly instead of trying to use a sink tip as sink tips are often useless in water that small. We were able to stick with dries while we fished and caught some really nice small stream rainbows, a few of which were in the 10-12″ range which always provides an awesome battle. You can always tell when it’s a rainbow as they’ll jump a ton and always seem to bend the rod more than the brookies do.
We also hit a few slightly larger tribs and got into some larger fish. We landed two fish the other morning that were in the 17-19″ range, one brown on a big white streamer and one rainbow on a jig pheasant tail. Always nice to see a few larger fish that were looking nice and healthy. We have noticed that the fish in the smaller streams are all looking super healthy. Stuffed with food and very feisty. Awesome to see, especially with how low the water had been for a little while.Think the fish may have dodged a bullet with when we got rain. It came just in time to reduce/eliminate potential fish kills.
Be sure to get out this week/weekend! Have a couple plans in case the bigger rivers are too high/dirty but try to hit the Lamoille or Winooski if time and conditions allow it. Good luck!
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River: Winooski
Water Temp: 67am
Water Clarity: Dark Tea
Last Update: 7/28/21
USGS FI: 429
River: Dog
Water Temp: 62
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 7/28/21
USGS FI: 121
River: Lamoille
Water Temp:64
Water Clarity: Clear
Last Update: 7/28/21
USGS FI: 133