Thursday, July 25, 2013

Welcomed cool down

Hi Folks, Man, I love the cooler air temperatures and the feel of fall in the air.  Nice cold front has moved into town and really dropped daytime and night time air temperatures.  In turn, the water is cooling off and trout fishing is a go once again.  I guided a double yesterday chasing river smallmouth bass in the morning and trout in the afternoon.  Water temperatures held steady in between 64 and 66 degrees yesterday as the air temperature never really warmed throughout the day.  Water levels were up and the clarity was slightly off from the previous night's rain storm.  We landed 15 smallmouth in the morning dead drifting 3" watermelon colored Senkos on #4 red octopus hooks.  I like the smaller Senkos in rivers versus the larger version I use in lakes and ponds.  Tight casts to downed wood were very productive.  It appeared that the bass were holding under the wood and moved out to eat the dropping Senko.  Never really cleared were I fished yesterday so we had good cloud cover for the most of the day.  The afternoon trout fishing was just as good.  We fished a Lamoille tributary.  I told my client that I thought we would see a big trout today with the weather and conditions.  Big fish like the higher water and especially if it is not gin clear.  We carried two rods one rigged with a #14 light green stimulator and a nymph rig with a #14 double tungsten stone fly and a #18 bird's nest.  We did see a few #18 micro caddis hatching and some sporadic #20 olives, but no rising fish.  We had 6 trout eat the fly including a beautiful measured 17" wild male brown trout.  The fish absolutely gulped on the fly in.  The take sounded like a bass was eating a popper.  Lot of fun for my client landing that fish on a 3wt., stellar! We had one other good take on the dry and we missed the fish.  The rest of our action was on the nymph rig and we did land a beautiful jumping wild rainbow that measured almost 14".  Great afternoon of trout fihsing for July.  I love catching larger fish on dry flies and or nymphs.  I am not a big streamer fisherman though it would have been a good approach yesterday with the higher off colored water.  I just feel like a sinking line and leader with a streamer is like lure fishing.  I rather find the big boy trout when he decides to look up.  Off to chase trout this morning.  Remember to have fun and keep the non-native species at home.  Have fun, Willy