crawfish

Hi Folks, Guided the last two days in larger rivers for trout and smallmouth.  Visted spots that I have not fished in weeks due to the warm weather and warm water temperatures.  Yesterday morning was beautiful with cool clear weather and nice steady northerly breeze.  Water temperature was 64 degrees with clear water conditions.  Saw a decent hatch of #22 tricos and a few trout responding to the spinner drop.  We cast large stimulators and hopper patterns.  I had two new fly anglers and I cold not bear to start them out with a size #22 fly.  Hard to teach someone how to mend  a fly line if they can not see the fly.  Anywho, who caught and released a smallmouth bass, fall fish, and missed 3 trout.  A lot of fun watching the fish rise in the clear water to eat the fly.  Being able to see the fish come to the fly is extremely helpful in getting the hook set.  This morning we fished the Lamoille which was 67 degrees at 6:00am and 69 degrees by 10:00am.  Saw a few #20 tan micro caddis hatching and a few random rises.  Also, saw some #16 light cahill spinners hitting the water.  Pretty sunny this morning so surface feeding was limited.  My guests this morning were spin anglers and we cast craw fish imitation lures.  Lots of crawfish shucks on the rivers edge and you could see the craw fish darting about in the shallow water.  Do not under estimate the value of crawfish to trout and bass.  I have seen my fair share of crawfish in trout bellies over the years and it is pretty common to have smallmouth coughing up crawfish as they are landed.  The olive wooly bugger is pretty darn good crawfish imitation as well as a rebel crawfish for spin anglers.  Large trout in the Lamoille and Winooski eat a lot of crawfish due to our streams being nutrient poor and lacking a large number of stream born insects.  So our crawfish lures this morning accounted for 9 rainbows.  Mostly stocked fish though we did land two wild rainbows.  We missed or lost another 10 fish.  The rainbows looked okay considering the horribly hot July.  A few of the fish had the large head and skinny body syndrome.  Watch the water temps. as the Winooski and Lamoille will be too hot to fish this afternoon for trout.  Morning will be the best time as long as continue to get cool nights.  Small stream are looking good for trout.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have Fun, Willy