Hi Folks, Incredible day of trout fishing today on the upper Winooski. Especially since it is almost the middle of July. Water levels are still above seasonal average flows, but the temperatures are beautiful. The water temperature pretty much maintained 61 degrees from 5:45am to noon today. Clarity was great we watched a lot fish move to the fly before the take. Nice cloud cover all morning. No hatching bugs, but lots of fresh #10-#14 golden stone fly shucks on the boulders. Most of the hatching by stone flies occurs after dark. I do not think there was a spot we fished today where we did not hook a fish. Between two anglers, well over 40 fish were landed!!!! Probably had 60 come to the fly. Not an everyday event. We landed wild rainbows and stocked rainbows all morning long. As well as 10 stocked 10" to 11" brook trout. The fish looked in really good shape. No doubt the high water and cool temperatures have made our trout fat and happy. Pretty confident that where we fly fished today, the trout had not seen a fly in long time if even all season. We stuck to the same rigs for most of the day with a #12 and #14 green bodied stimulators with #18/#16 bead headed green caddis pupa. We did try some larger sized #10 orange and green bodied stimulators and got lots of looks from fish but not lots of takes. The smaller sized dry was the ticket. We had trout coming out of the water and back down on the fly. You had to be patient on the hook set like in bass fishing. The ratio fish eating the dry to the dropper was fairly even. We even had trout taking flies on the swing and a #8 cone headed root beer crystal chenille zonker hooked some of the larger fish in deeper pools being dead drifted and moved slowly. The fish all ranged from 7" to 15". About a good of day trout fishing as you could ask for without catching a brown trout. Off to chase smallmouth. Hope it stays cool for the river fishing. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
