Hi Folks, I have been really mixing it up lately from small stream trout fishing to big river smallmouth bass fly fishing. it has been pretty darn hot and I am ready for a cool down and some rain. Our rivers are low and warm and we need rain. The Lamoille and Missiqoui were 77 to 79 degrees the last two afternoons. The small brook I have been guiding has maintained 59 degree temperatures. The Winooski trib. I was on yesterday morning was 61 to 63 degrees. Pretty good trout fishing yesterday morning as we located a pod of feeding fish who were rising to a small #22 midge, an occasional #10 Golden Drake (Potamanthus) and a #18 light bodied caddis. We fished a dry dropper rig with a #12 foam Trude and #16 caddis dropper and a #12 Royal Wulff with a #18 peacock soft hackle dropper. We landed 5 wild brown trout and missed a few. We were able to sight fish several trout. The fish were cruising in a long slow flat back and forth while eating. The area slowed up once the sun got high over head and the fish got spooked by our fly line being cast over them. We did spot several very large browns that would be worth pursuing at a future date. On the smallmouth front the fishing has been pretty good. Lots of action but maybe not as fast and furious as could be if the water was just a little cooler. We are landing double digit numbers of fish, I just think that there a few smallies that are not as eager to play in the really warm river temperatures. A #8 frog popper with a yellow belly and a #6 olive zonker, and a #6 black wooly bugger have all been effective in big pools. Casting and drifting to large rocks have produced the most fish. They seem wired to the big cover in the river. My guiding weekend began with a fish rescue by Catfish. I was on a bottom fed river with lots of plunge pools. In one of the plunges we watched a trout attempt to jump the falls. We noticed that a fish appeared to be stuck in the rocks of the falls. Sure enough it was a 24" wild resident male rainbow. It was wedged in such a way that it still had a trickle of water running into its mouth. I caught it with my hands and rested it in a plunge pool before moving it above to the large pool it was attempting to jump to. Arguably the largest wild rainbow I have ever seen in Vermont. A true Anomaly. Go fishing enough you see some crazy things. I am off to chase bass. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
