big rain

Hi folks, Guided the Winooski watershed yesterday in the rain and the Lamoille on Wednesday.  Water temperatures have maintained in the high fifties to low sixties and the air temperatures have remained warm with muggy air.  Water levels have come down and up and our rivers are now not fishable.  We are under a flood watch and I have received almost 4" of rain at my house in Stowe.  Shame, as our rivers were fishing well and the trout had been biting.  Wednesday on the Lamoille we dead drifted #12 olive and black wooly buggers attached to long leaders.  Had trout eat the fly on the dead drift and the swing.  Imitating crawfish which is a favorite of our larger trout.  The dead drift is the approach with a  bugger as crawfish live on the bottom of the stream and the fly needs to get down and dirty.  Yesterday was spent on a small brown trout stream with bright colored streamers.  Pretty cool watching brown trout smash the fly.  We covered a lot of water and had 3 wild browns between 10" and 13" eat the brightly colored #10 mickey finn.  We did have much larger brown trout chase the fly only to deny us as it approached.  Never saw the fish again which I am not surprised by.  Typically a large fish makes one good effort to eat the fly and if it does not happen then move forward.  Lots of junk in the river yesterday and was a bit of a pain.  Well looks like no trip today for me and I might be boat and canoe fishing for pike as our rivers will take a few days to settle down.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have fun, Willy