Thursday, September 29, 2016

working hard

Hi Folks, Been working hard on my guided trips this week for fish.  Smallmouth fished out of my boat on Monday.  Water temperatures ranged from 58 to 65 degrees.  A steady south/southeast wind impacted the temperatures and the fishing.  We fly cast for most of the day and then resorted to spin fishing once my guests arm was about to fall off.  We half a dozen large smallmouth come to a #8 red/yellow deer hair bug.  The fish were holding on drop offs next to large weed beds in 12' to 15' of water.  When we started casting a 4" motor oil Senko on the spin rod we were getting strikes every other cast.  Landed a dozen feisty bass.  Guided a couple of trout trips the next few days where water temperature on the Lamoille was 61 degrees and on the Winooski 63 degrees.  Both rivers are really low.  Been seeing a fair amount of olive caddis larvae on rocks and decent numbers of #14-#16 caddis hatching in the morning and egg laying in the late afternoon.  We did locate a nice brown trout rising the other morning and got him to eat a #16 x-caddis and then he promptly snapped the tippet.  We have been casting dry dropper rigs with caddis and #12 adams parachutes as the dry and #18 pheasant tail and olive caddis pupa as the dropper fly.  Most of our fish have been eating the dropper nymph.  Been making lots of casts to get fish to eat.  The low water and warmer than average temperatures have made the fishing challenging.  We really need rain.  Off to chase trout today.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have Fun, Willy