Hi Folks, Been staying out of trouble guiding everyday. Did a double yesterday of river fishing and ran my boat this morning. Yesterday morning the small stream fishing was fantastic!!! We landed 17 nice brook trout, 1 wild rainbow, and 1 wild brown. We fly fished a brook that I would say does not see much human traffic. We were off the beaten path. The water temperature was 58 degrees and it was gin clear. You could sight fish in certain spots. For all of you folks who have doubts about wild trout fishing in Vermont, fly fish a small high gradient stream some time. That is were the wild trout live in abundance from native brookies to wild bows and browns. Countless miles of water with fish that are pretty willing to eat dry flies blindly fished due to our waters general infertility. The larger rivers like the Lamoille and Winooski are were higher percentage of the stocked fish are. The tactics are simple in the little brooks. Work up stream and dress in earth tones. The spook factor is real and ever present. Nice presentations are important and do not false cast too much over the water you intend to fish especially if using a bright colored fly line. On the other end of the spectrum, my afternoon trip was spin fishing for smallmouth in a river. The water was 74 degrees and it was a bright hot sunny day. We landed 16 smallmouth yesterday afternoon dead drifting 3" and 4" green and crawfish colored Senkos and the last few fish of the day ate a perch rapala. All of the bass were holding in deep slow pools with a bit of cover. This morning I ran the boat to a northern lake. Surface temperature was 73 to 74 degrees. Big bright sun for most of the morning and the wind really increased out of the west. We worked for fish and could figure out any pattern to the fishing. We only landed 2 largemouth and 1 smallmouth. We did hook a few other bass, but the fishing was pretty slow overall. The 18" smallmouth we caught ate a 5" green Senko. We worked a variety of lures and caught another bass on a fire tiger spinner. The largemouth were holding in heavy weed cover. The smallmouth was out in 18' of water over a hard bottom. Looks like big rain this afternoon and then a cold front moves in, perfect in my world. Will be trout fishing the next few days. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
