We had a fair amount of rain last week and early in the weekend. Some Facebook posts I saw on Saturday told me that many of the local rivers were running high and off-color. It's now past Memorial Day weekend and I've been unable to fish the main branches of two of my favorite rivers because water levels are too high for safe wading. It's odd that growing up in PA, fishing for stocked fish, I would usually transition from chasing trout to chasing bass after Memorial Day. This year, I feel like I've barely gotten started with trout.
Saturday, my daughter had a lacrosse game and I used the trip downtown to watch the game in order to scout out two local streams. I live near the Third Branch of the White River, although I don't fish it very often. OK, I probably fish it 5-10 times per year when time is tight and I want to get in a little bit of fishing time. There are wild browns in the river, but I probably get skunked 3 out of every 4 trips on this river. And too often, if I catch anything at all, it's a stocked fish. On Saturday, the Third Branch looked a bit high, but clear enough to fish.
I also checked out Ayers Brook, which empties into the Third Branch. Years ago, it sustained a decent population of small wild browns, but things are a bit tougher these days. I know browns from the Third Branch spawn in Ayers Brook, but other than that, it seems desolate at times. The river meanders through a lot of open fields and gets very warm in the summertime. Yes, there are still fish in there, but fishing can be tough. The water on Ayers Brook was running a bit high and a bit cloudy.
There is a smaller brook that I'd never fished, called Adams Brook. It empties into Ayers. It parallels a long downhill road section. When I've been running, I've been able to see pockets that look like they might hold fish. Given that I didn't really want to fish the Third Branch and Ayers was cloudy, I opted for an adventure on Adams.
I started on Ayers and immediately noticed a significant Hendrickson hatch Even though no fish were rising, I put on a dark Hendrickson and started working upstream. In the first 15 minutes, my fly was popular. I don't know if it was tiny brookies just slapping at it, or legit strikes, but there was some action, just no fish hooked. But, as I continued to work upstream, the hatch thinned out and the action quickly dissipated.
I tried a number of flies in the various small pockets of water I found, with no luck. I did see one fish about a foot long in one of the holes, but I was fishing with the sun behind me and I got lazy with my shadow, sending him under a rock. After 2+ hours of boulder-hopping and trying to navigate fallen trees and even a small waterfall, I was soaking wet (with sweat) from the effort. I called it a day.
On Monday, I had a lot to do, but saved some time in the evening to get out fishing if the weather cooperated. At 4:30, I'd done all I needed to do and I headed for the town of Pittsfield on the upper part of the main branch of the White. It rained most of my drive to the river, but rain was intermittent while I fished. This is where I'd caught a lot of stocked fish a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to see if the Hendricksons would still be hatching and if I could lure some wild fish to the surface. The answers were yes on the Hendricksons (as well as Cahills and Quill Gordons) and no on the dry fly fishing. I did managed to pick up one stocked fish on a Psycho Prince and a wild rainbow on a soft hackle. I missed a handful of strikes as well.
The hatch was a thing of beauty. What surprised me was that the Cahills easily out-numbered the Hendricksons, but both were there in quantity. This was easily the best hatch I've seen in VT since Hurricane Irene. The White River is still heavily silted at places from that storm, but it was nice to see insect levels returning to pre-hurricane levels. Now, if only the fish remembered how to eat bugs on the surface, the real fun would start.
It was my first time fishing with 2 pieces of equipment. The rod I used was an 8'6" 5 weight St. Croix Imperial that I got on closeout from a local store that's going out of business. The other new item was Rio Perception line. At first, the combo was a disaster for me. Short casts just didn't want to go. The rod has a lot of tip flex and the line seemed to want to bunch up near the tip on short casts. But, with a little patience, I found my rhythm. I was amazed by how much distance I was able to get with this combo. I was able to put some dry flies on the far edge of the stream with a fairly light touch, giving me a nice drag-free drift for a while. The key to the casting was simply remembering that this isn't my old Sage RPL+. It is slower and it takes a lot longer to load. But, as soon as I slowed things down, casting got easy.
The Perception line is a low stretch line that I expect to help me with nymphing. And, I felt like I was able to pick up strikes there pretty well. But, where it surprised me was performance with dries on long casts.
I'm hoping that the water levels drop some this week, so I can try the lower main branch of the White and the Winooski below Waterbury next weekend. If water is still high on those streams, I may make the longer drive to fish the New Haven or Middlebury.
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