It appears summer has arrived here in central Vermont! What a great time to be outside, I have packed my waders away for the season and most likely won’t take them back out till the fall. For those of you that like to wet wade a good pair of gravel guard socks and quick dry pants are priceless. I like to wear the same boots when I wet wade; these gravel guard socks will fill the same void as your thicker wader booties.

The fishing over the past couple weeks has been great. Lots of people are getting into fish both stocked and wild on every technique under the sun. Nymphing with two fly rigs has produced the most fish for me, but throwing dries early and late is a great option as well. When possible I try and save my fishing times for the low light hours. Fishing midday can be tough, the high bright sun and warmest temperatures can make things challenging. Making longer casts, staying hidden and approaching locations to fish from below is definitely recommended. As the water continues to warm I would expect to see less march browns and yellow sallies and more caddis to take over as the primary hatching bug. My fly selections are pretty simple for nymphs I like quilldigons as my point fly and small natural sometimes unweighted pheasant tails as my dropper fly. Some other good patterns to have on hand would include walts worms, GTI caddis, and a blow torch or red dart as an attractor option. For dries you can’t go wrong with parachute adams and elk hair caddis. To add a few more to your box I would have carnage drake march browns, front end loader caddis, and corn fed caddis. If you like to fish streamers or closer to the otter crayfish patterns like the cowbell cray and Joe’s mini cray are great.    

On Wednesday I took a few temperature readings in the 70’s already. Wednesday night brought some rain and an overnight low down into the 50’s. Thursday morning the same locations had temperatures back down in the low 60’s. If you don’t have a thermometer please get one, we have both digital and analog options in the store. The extended forecast shows both rain and cool nights which is much needed right now. Good luck to those of you getting out this weekend.