River Conditions: 7/13/16

Water Clarity: Water Temperatures:  59-70

Hatches:  Yellow Sallies, BWO’s, Tan Caddis Flies, Hex, Sulphurs, Light Cahils

Suggested Patterns:  Iron Sally #14-16, Caddis Poopah #16, Hot Wire Caddis #14-16, Dirty Birds #14-16, Taylor’s Gut #16-18, Copper Johns #16-18, Hare’s Ears #14-18, Bird of Prey Olive #16, Kyle’s BH CNC #16-18, X-Caddis #14-18, Light Cahill #14-16, Blond Wulf #12-16, Black Ant #14-18, , DeFrank’s Wiggle Hex Nymph,

The water levels have dropped quite a bit over the past two days and things have warmed up a bit. Water temps this morning were ok on the lamoille but things will be warming up quickly. We’re in for some storms moving through this evening and over the next few days we’ll be getting pm thunderstorms. Hopefully some significant rain moves through with them to help out with the water temps. The smaller streams are in good shape right now, the flows are up a little still and the fish are very happy! The medium sized streams are in good shape as well but will be warming up too. The past few days we had some epic fishing on the bigger rivers while the flows were up and cool. We had several trips that hooked over 20 in half day trips with a couple of bruisers hooked and or landed. These were on float trips where we were able to cover a lot of water. We did well streamer fishing and nymphing with the biggest fish taking larger streamer patterns. The hoppers are really starting to show themselves along with other terrestrials so make sure you’ve got some terrestrial patterns in your box. When the conditions are just right, this is often the time of the year that you can catch some huge fish on grass hoppers, beetles and ants. Running a hopper dropper system can be a very effective way at getting after fish. Nymphs and wet flies work very well when fished behind a hopper, run tippet lengths of anywhere between 12 and 24″ off the back of the hopper to attach your dropper. Another good fly to fish is a black ant behind you hopper. Ants work tremendously well fished as a dry fly and a wet fly, they can be a challenge though because of their small size so having a larger dry fly to use as an indicator as to where your ant is can often be very beneficial and will increase the amount of hooked fish. The warm water fishing has remained pretty good as well. The Largemouth in some of the local ponds have been super aggressive lately. With the sunnier conditions, we’ve been finding the most fish in the thickest weeds you can fish. The key in these conditions are to fish flies with either a wire or mono weed guard and no light than 15lb test for a leader. Maxima works very well because of it’s stiffer properties it will have better turn over with bushy flies. Aside from topwater bugs, clouser minnows, wooly buggers and montana mouthwash all work well for both smallmouth and largemouth bass.

The Fly Rod Shop is Northern Vermont’s finest fly fishing guide service and fly fishing gear retailer. Visit our shop on Route 100 in Stowe, VT or shop our online store to find gear from Simms Fishing Products, Sitka, Seele Rods, Redington, Loon Products, Montana Fly Company, Buff, Lamson Waterworks, Sage, Rio, Scientific Angler and more!