Water Please

Ummm...we could use some water

Good Fishing Right Now!

One more cast...

We had a great group of 4H kids yesterday for a fly tying session.  The kids ranged from 6-13 and they whipped up some great little trout bugs!  It's great to let the kids pick their own color combos and see what their little creative minds come up with.  If you have a group that would like to do a tying session, just drop us a line at gmtvermont@gmail.com

Clearing after a brief rainstorm

I had started to write a post yesterday, but just got too busy and had to put computer stuff on the back burner.  However, we have been trying to add fresh photos and content to the site as often as possible and I can see that reflected in our site visits!  We are seeing close to 10,000 visitors to www.gmtrout.com  each month!  Thanks to all you that check in on a regular basis!  We're also seeing lots of new faces in the shop this season.  Remember that GMT is also on Facebook, so be sure to check in with us there as well.  You can also bookmark our other endeavors, the Ditch Pickle Classic and Green Mountain Fly Fishing Camp.


A nice afternoon on a Lamoille tributary

Yesterday changed drastically from a bright, sunny day with a heafty breeze to a cloudy, damp rain bag in a matter of minutes.  I had a short, instructional outing planned with a great local angler who wanted to improve on his nymphing skills.  We fished a beat of water on the Lamoille that I had hoped would get us out of the wind and, luckily, it did.  After the short downpours cleared out, it turned out to be a beautiful evening for fishing.  I stuck around for just over an hour and he was able polish up his mending skills and nymph up a wild rainbow.  Sometimes anglers that have all the skills struggle with the mental fishing game and just need reassurance that they're doin' it all right.  Fish have a funny way of avoiding anglers that lack confidence, so stay confident out there and success will find you

Still Life With HDR

The colors of this wild Lamoille brown really pop with the added  HDR effect

It's amazing how far we've come in the world of digital photography.  The possibilities are virtually endless as long as you have a decent smart phone and a handful of photo-editing apps.  I've been discovering features on my phone that I never knew existed.  The result is some pretty cool images.  

HDR Smaille

We've been on the water just about every day lately and the local trout fishing really has picked up.  We've still not seen a ton of rainbows, but when our guests are catching beautiful wild browns like the one pictured above, it's easy to leave the river with a smile on our faces.  Crystal buggers in 8-10 and PT nymphs in a size 14 have still been turning heads for us.

This cold front will get moving out of here after tonight, but the theme remains the lack of water we currently have in the systems.  The Lamoille in Johnson is almost 400cfs below its mean flow for this time of year!  

I made the trek north to the Clyde looking for landlocks yesterday and found the river absolutely loaded with suckers, huge schools of yellow perch, rock bass and the occasional freight train smallie.  The water was low and, given the mass of suckers, I didn't bother nymphing at all.  Instead, I stripped big streamers hoping for a LLS to give chase.  I saw no sign of salmon, but did see a few foul-hooked suckers from the anglers that were nymphing.   

Rain!

Our junior guide givin' a lesson

We got a nice soaking rain last night and everything looks so much greener and smells so much fresher this morning.  The ground soaked up pretty much every bit of the rain, so river levels haven't budged much if at all.  As I sat here yesterday writing reports of little rising fish activity, Mike was out with a first-time fly rodder and reported decent bug activity with plenty of fish slashing on the surface.  Only Hendricksons were popping off, but an elk hair caddis was the meal they seemed most interested in.  I think that after fighting a half dozen fish to the net, we have hooked yet another new angler on catching fish on the fly!  Even the fallfish got some love yesterday and posed for a photo opp. 

Many of our local bass are in full-on spawn mode and I'm aware that some primary spawning tribs have been getting hit very hard by anglers.  We have so many fishing options right now that there is no need to repeatedly pound on spawning fish.  Please just let these fish do their thing and make more fish which, after all, is really what we all want right?...more fish <"(((((><

 

Not what you wanna see rolling down river when you're fishing!

 

  

Upcoming Fishing Regs Hearings

For Troutfitters junior guide Calvin, fishing just
runs in the family!

We really haven't gotten any rain to speak of as of yet and, whereas I thought today would be much wetter and damper, it's not the case.  In fact, it's just as beautiful as previous days have been this week.  Great for recreating, but really not ideal fishing weather for May!  We do have a good chance of showers tonight and tomorrow according to NOAA, but we'll have to just wait and see what transpires.  Aside from rain, Sunday and Monday night will get really cold, dropping into the low 30's Monday night...cover up those gardens!  With the combination of little to no humidity and bright sunny days, we haven't seen many fish rising on the surface since the bugs don't need much time to dry off and take flight.  A smart fish knows when to leave well enough alone and will instead key in on easier meals below the surface.  We've seen handfuls of 9-11 inch wild rainbows in the mainstem Lamoille, but not promising numbers by any means.  These fish need the help of all anglers in order for their numbers to rebound to healthier levels.  Vermont Dept of Fish and Wildlife will be hosting public hearings later this month to gather input in regards to some proposed regulation changes that would open up several miles of water to fishing between 11/1 and the 2nd week of April each year.  It is also being proposed to change the brook trout limit from the obsurd 12 fish limit to 6 fish.  Please take a moment to read the proposed changes in their entirety here and please find the time to attend one of the hearings in St. Johnsbury, Montpelier or Castleton.  You can also send your comments to the Fish and Wildlife Board here. 
Public hearing dates and locations...


The "Petting Zoo" fish of the Lamoille and Winooski
have all been stocked

-Tuesday, May 28 – St. Johnsbury Elementary School Auditorium (6:30pm)
 
-Wednesday, May 29 – Pavilion Auditorium in the Pavilion Building, 109 State Street, Montpelier(6:30 pm)
 
-Thursday, May 30 – Kehoe Education Center, Castleton, VT(6:30 pm)

 



Love that Guitar Minnow!

Wild Lamoille Brown Trout

Water levels are still dropping while temperatures continue to rise, but we do have a damp cool down coming in this weekend into early next week.  That will likely put the warmwater bite in a bit of a flux while, at the same time, allow for our stocking trucks to get those hatchery fish in the rivers while they are still below 70 degrees!  Our bass guide, Matt Applebaum has been putting up 100+ fish days on the lakes and we've got openings on the calendar, so get in on a bassin' tour on the fly or spinning rods!
We have seen some Hendricksons popping off in the Lamoille, but seemingly few fish are keyed into them since their emergence in this super dry weather happens very rapidly.  Mike had some luck drifting PT nymphs under an indicator in the seams and was able to cash in on a few fish last night on the Lamoille.   

The other day the bass were all over the "Guitar Minnow," which was created by Jim Bernstein of Eldridge Brothers Fly Shop in Maine.  This fly was created for striped bass, but it works just fine on the freshwater bass too!  Here's a video with tying instructions for this pattern.

My version of the "Guitar Minnow"



DPC Edits