Still Cold

Wild brown caught 5/13

Things are warming up very slowly.  Above average rain and cold temps persist and continue to make the fishing rather challenging.  I did my first trip of the season this weekend.  We had 3/4 inches of rain and cold water temps to contend with. I set expectations low and unfortunately that is exactly where they stayed.  We fished for 4 hrs and did not catch a fish.  One angler was new to fly fishing and I took the opportunity to show him as much information as I could.  Although I was able to find clean water for them, it was not to be.  We did see come hendricksons coming off but there was no fish in sight.

The next day I ran out for an hour and was able to connect with a meat eater on a stream that was warmer, but brown the day before. Nevertheless, putting in your hours is the name of the game right now until things warm up and local rivers are stocked.  As of this writing, no streams in Lamoille county have fresh stocked fish yet so, it is not about numbers but instead, looking for the one. This fish ate a heavy sculpin pattern.  Deep and slow still seems to be the ticket while we continue these cold nights.

Steelhead options are good right now and fish are being caught daily.  It is a short window so best get at it while the getting is good.

Later this week and into the weekend air temps will slowly climb toward 70 degrees and we should start to see a more steady bite and perhaps some surface feeding as well.