Hi Folks, Guided the almost perfect trout fishing trip yesterday with the fly rods. I had a guest who owned all of the gear, great attitude, could cast, and was eager to learn about fly fishing for trout. The missing piece to the puzzle was he had not had a lot of success catching trout. Water conditions were perfect with levels above average flow, 57 degrees, and over cast. We spent the day day working our way up a Lamoille trib. casting and drifting into pocket water. Unfortunately this has all changed today as we got torrential rain last night that has blown out our rivers. We are saturated!!!!! We had several different bugs hatching yesterday with a #16 olive bodied caddis coming off , a #18 black caddis coming off, and tiny #20 BWOs hatching in mid afternoon. We found some rising fish, but we had just as many trout eat our dry fly blind fishing. The rig of the day was #10 orange bodied Stimulator with a #16 olive caddis pupa dropper and then a #18 BWO nymph dropper. We did nymph some heavy plunges with an indicator rig that had a #12 black double tungsten stone fly and a #16 olive hare and copper nymph. We landed 20 trout and had just as many eat the fly. I think in every spot we fished we had a trout take the fly. It was fun for me to watch so many fish move to eat. I typically do not fish when guiding so I get to observe and watch. I try to position myself to see the behavior of fish. Man, I saw a lot of trout move from holding spots yesterday to eat the fly. In particular, the larger brown trout were positioned on the up stream side of large boulders and would launch themselves to eat. We caught wild rainbows, wild browns, and stocked browns. Hooked several large fish that made short work of us by wrapping around rocks. When pocket water fishing you need to really focus on your mending. Less fly line is better and high sticking is really a nice way to dead drift the fly. We had multiple fish deny us when we made a sloppy presentation and then come back to eat when we presented the properly. Great day on the water, what a damn shame that the rain had to blow it out!!! Well, running the boat and fishing small streams for brookies it appears. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
