Hi Folks, Good weekend of fishing in the rivers and on the still water. Guided the last couple of days chasing smallmouth bass with a few trout in the mix. Not only was June wet as we received almost 11" of rain for the month, but also chilly. River temperatures have maintained as the Lamoille was 64 degrees on Saturday morning and the other river I visited was 58 degrees. Not bad water temperatures for the beginning July. The Lamoille was pretty slow Saturday morning so my clients and I moved to another stream. The surface temperature on the lake this afternoon was 71 degrees with slight north wind that laid down towards dusk. The river fishing for bass has been interesting in that we have been catching a fair amount of trout using bass tactics. The incredible edible Senko in 3" has been very productive on stocked rainbows and browns. Been a few rising fish in the morning eating #18/#20 tan bodied micro caddis. Dead drifting the rubber has been important as it appears the river smallies have been not quite as aggressive to eat. I think it has to do with the below average water temperatures. The surface fishing for bass had been fairly slow all week until tonight. We fly fished and cast a spin rod a bit for smallmouth tonight on clear lake. We focused around milfoil beds over hard bottom and any downed wood we located. The bass were in deeper water early on and then moved into skinny water at dusk. All of our surface flies had a yellow or chartreuse belly. I think it makes a difference this time of year due to the #4/#6 Hex hatch. The Hex is a big yellow bug. We saw a few bugs coming off and few rise forms. Not sure if they were smallmouth or rainbows eating off the top but I suspect they were bass. So the theme of the night was patience on the hook set. When surface fishing for bass always count 1 and set or feel the fish or see your fly disappear. We had some explosive strikes and some subtle takes. My guests had been dry fly fishing for trout and it took a bit of adjusting our hook before we started to capitalize on the numerous takes we were getting. The largest fish of the night was almost 19". We took the popper away from it the first time and when it was finally hooked we watched in rise slowly and open its mouth and close it on the fly, very cool. This time patience on the hook set produced fireworks. The fishing was very good tonight and lots of fish coming to the fly. Really picked up a dusk. We were greeted early on with a large pickerel breaking off a popper. Luckily we found the fly floating after the break off with about 2" of tippet still tied onto the popper. Fun weekend. Off to chase trout tomorrow. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
