Mid Winter Update

The 2025 Fly Fishing season is fast approaching, so please do not forget to purchase your fishing licenses before heading out.  

While there's only a couple of months until the season really starts, it surely doesn't feel that way.  We have had a good old fashioned VT winter thus far.  This is the longest in 3-4 years that I can remember having snow continually on the ground down low in the Champlain River Valleys.  Most rivers are locked up in ice and perhaps Lake Champlain will completely freeze over this season.  What used to be common for the lake years ago now is a rarity.  The snow depth on top of Mt. Mansfield is about 25" over average for the date.  The ground is not frozen under the snow and has been slowly melting snow all winter allowing water to percolate into our aquifers all winter.  

What will this mean for fish coming into the spring? For lakes it is certainly a good thing.  These ecosystems here in the north have adapted over many thousands of years for ice coverage.  As far as the rivers, our wild trout are capable, and certainly our wild and native brook trout are adapted to long and cold winters.  I feel that stocked trout will have a hard time surviving.  Often, the stocked trout that make it through the summer are taken out by the winter weather and ice, and very few are alive come spring time.  It is really rare for me to find hold over rainbows and somewhat rare to find holdover browns in this areas rivers.  I did find some hold over rainbows last fall on a big river that had been stocked two springs before.  Thanks to the high water of both summers and the mild winter last year they were able to make it.  I think it's a good thing that the stocked trout do not hold over well in our rivers. That leads to less competition for food during the winter months when food is not as readily available. More importantly, there is less interference with the wild trout spawning seasons and less chance to "water down" the gene pool of the wild trout with inferior stocked trout genetics, though some strains of stocked trout are incapable of breeding. 

If you are getting the itch to fly fish in the Northeast this winter, there are a few tailwaters that should stay open within 1-2 hour drive for everyone in the state.  If you are looking to take a long weekend and fish, there are great options in western NY and PA that provide good spring creek fishing throughout the winter months, and there are some good tailwaters in Southern New England. The freestone rivers here in Northern VT are open to fishing, but they certainly are not fishable for the most part. 

I'm trying to get back into tying for the upcoming season, but it hasn't happened yet!  When I do start it will be a few basic nymphs like Pheasant tails, stoneflies, mops, worms, eggs, and jig streamers. 

I'd like to keep producing a few youtube videos, but the time just has not been there for me lately.  If there is anyone out there that would like to help me with this please reach out.  I know a lot of you have initially contacted me because of the videos.