H Folks, I had the chance to fish between guiding trips yesterday morning. Visited an old favorite Winooski River tributary. The beat I fished with another angler I had not walked in 7 years. Certainly some of it looked different (this stream got a bit beat up by Irene) but a fair amount of water looked the same. That is a good thing when you have stability. The water temperature was 60 degrees and we had a nice dam cloudy drizzly type of morning. Water is low and man we need more rain. Saw a few #22 Tricos, a few #18 caddis, but not a lot of hatching activity. We did see some rather large fish make a few random rises including a trophy brown trout. I was all about matching the hatch and used a #18 black foam ant with a #22 peacock herl soft hackle dropper. While my angling partner opted for his old go to the #14 Royal Trude. Guess what, the Trude crushed it. He landed a beautiful brown trout and rainbow as well as missing several large fish. We blind fished the trudes in the stable holes. Really slow drifts. I did get two trout to eat the ant. I missed one fish and lost the another rainbow at my feet. A #18 olive caddis pupa under the Trude did catch the best fish of the day a jumping hard pulling 15" wild rainbow. It was great to see this stream fish well. Pleasant surprise. This morning I stormed a client up a small brook for wild rainbows, browns, and brookies. Water temperature was 56 degrees and the water was slightly up and clear. We landed 15 brook trout and two wild rainbows with one measuring in at 11" Good fun on a slow action 6' 2wt. A #12 rubber legged foam bodied trude was the fly of the day. Two pretty good back to back mornings of trout fishing, very nice. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
