What a June

Hi Folks, It has been a fun past few days guiding. Mixed up the venues and the species. My trout fishing has been relegated to the smaller water. The trib. streams have fished really well. Water levels have been just slightly above seasonal average flow in the brooks and high in the big water. The Winooski was off color today and still high. Water temperatures have risen. The streams I guided Wednesday and Thursday were 62 degrees to 64 degrees. Hot sunny days and I took those readings late afternoon. We have had great success catching stocked and wild brown trout on a #12 Brown Sparkle Dub Parachute. The fish have been holding off big boulders that are adjacent to current seams and eddies. Fun watching an almond shape rise up in the water column to slurp down a big dry. For the weekend I changed directions and fished for bass and pike the last 3 days. The warm water fishing has been pretty good. I fished moving water that was 63 degrees and ran the boat on a prolific warm water fishery that was 72 to 74 degrees. Back to drifting 3” to 4” Senkos in greens and browns. We had a nice smallmouth cough up a brown crawfish today as we were netting it. The prize of today was a big pike that stopped a fire tiger Rapala in its tracks. A nice healthy 6 to 7 lb. Hen that pulled some drag. The fish was hooked on the outside edge of a big weed bed in about 10’ of water. We landed an additional 10 smallmouth and a largemouth bass on a fire tiger popper and 4” and 5” Crawfish Senkos. When we were reeling in the largemouth there was a really large Bowfin that attempted to eat the bass on several occasions. Pretty cool to watch. Glad I was not the bass. The river smallmouth fishing Saturday was consistent. Most of our fish were caught on an olive grub Texas rigged on a #2 red wire hook or olive and watermelon black magic 3” Senkos. We dead drifted the artificial lures into large pools. We caught stocked rainbows in the fast water and bass in the slower sections of the pools. All of the bass were holding on cover and the takes were subtle. Back in the drift boat tomorrow. After a lousy May, June has been fabulous. Great month of trout fishing. Looks the fishing should continue to be good the next few days with the current weather pattern. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun , Willy