Tuesday, May 22, 2018
big brown, dry fly action, and more
Hi Folks, Been an interesting few days of trout fishing. I have been guiding wade trips and just completed my first float trip of the season. Water temperatures are warming slowly. A Lamoille tributary was 51 degrees on Sunday and the main stem of the Winooski was 58 degrees yesterday. Saw a ton of #14 green apple bodied caddis coming off yesterday on the Winooski and we actually found a few risers. The fishing was slow until the last hour or so of light. Big bright sunny day and the water level is slightly above the seasonal average flow. The fish can be pretty spread out and hard to locate in the higher water in stream with not a high density of trout. We worked for the 4 fish landed. We cast a double streamer rig for good part of the float with a #6 white zonker and a #10 black/olive bugger dropper. We cast a 200 grain sink tip keeping the flies down in the water column. The fish ate the bugger and the risers were on an x-caddis. Sunday produced quality not quantity. One beautiful 19" wild male brown trout that stopped a white zonker in its tracks. Not much for bugs on Sunday so we resorted to prying deep primary pools with the tandem stream rig. I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week. Taking the motorboat out for some pre spawn smallmouth action next. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. have fun, Willy