While the water levels were coming into a good range at the end of April. However, most of May till now has been wet and rainy. Several steady soaking rain events have brought most of my target watersheds unfishable and sometimes unsafe to be in the water. As I write this today the Walloomsac is fishable in only several spots but with little fishing pressure the fish are eager to bite. The Battenkill is 1940 CFS, the Mettawee is 639 CFS and the Hoosic is 400 CFS, all too high. The Wallomsac trophy section and the upper section were stocked this week and when the water drops some more more targets will be fishable. For bugs, I am seeing March Browns, Light Cahills, and now tan caddis. No major flush hatches but bugs are emerging even in the higher flows.
We don't need more rain!
Tight Lines!
Vermont"s official Trout opener is Saturday April 12th, this year. I finished with my winter job on the first of the month and it was still winter with early April being cold and snowy. No major winter storms but spring seemed late in coming. My first real scouting was on April 10th. I walked a number of stretches in small water over the next 2 weeks. Some changes to pools, but nothing major where I scouted.The cooler than normal weather helped with a slow snowmelt runoff. Water levels in area streams mid-month were normal for that time frame. Very little rain till the end of April where we saw rain events that raised water levels to bankfull and not safe fishing conditions. For example, the Walloomsac was a nice 250 CFS on April 25th, only to go to over 1000 CFS on the 27th. The same was true on the BattenKill and the Mettawee during that time frame. I started trips this past week and today targeted the Trophy section on the Walloomsac after they stocked several days ago. Though the water was high my client was fishing Spey style so we could fish a lot of water and did not need to venture too far from the bank because no backcasting is needed. He caught his first trout fishing with a 2 handed rod!
I will keep you posted as we enter the beginning of May with conditions and hatches.
Tight Lines! Peter Basta
