Heat Wave on the Way

Sorry its been a while since I updated the report.  Things have been crazy for me here between selling my house and moving out, on top of  guiding and managing trips for my guide Andy.  I just haven't had an hour to write up a report and get pics uploaded from my camera, cell phone, and pics sent to me from clients phones and cams.  

The big news is the Heat Wave on the way for the holiday week.  We are talking some seriously hot weather for at least a week and truthfully has me a little worried about the welfare of  our trout.  Thankfully we got a good soaking rain that cooled the rivers off and raised the levels going into the warms stretch. I was on the water early this morning with a client  on a mid sized stream and it was up and bit and a little off color to start.  Water temp as 58 to begin the day, water was warming, dropping and clearing as we fished and about 62 when we got off. The fish were not crazy active but we pick away at them and landed a fair amount. My angler got the grand slam landing wild Brookie, rainbow and brown on  this stretch of river. This will be a distant memory by the evening unfortunately. I really hope that we get some thunderstorms next week as eel to help cool and elevate the riversl.  These long stretches of warm low water are what really stress the trout.   Though we got rain its not going to stop most rivers from warming much above 70 degrees for the weekend and unless you get out Friday morning like I am with a  client, or know a river or stream that stays cool all summer long, your best bet is to lay off the trout on our freestone streams.  Its a good weekend to take a road trip to a regional tailwater either to the north or to the south. We know a handful of streams and rivers that stay cool all summer so there are some options if you'd like to get out next week with us.   For trout, you could also hit a pond for the hex hatch which is peaking right now, as long as it has some depth where the fish can get to cool water.  The trout pond we have a camp on has a great hex hatch and even during the warmest years the water is cold 2-4' below the surface this time of year.  

I'd also recommend throwing top water for Largemouth bass on lakes and ponds as this warm weather may drive the smallmouth down deep, or fishing the lower stretches of the big rivers for smallmouth.  

Speaking of Bass, last weekend was the Annual Ditch Pickle Classic fly fishing tournament for bass on Lake Champlain. We had a great time, drank a lot of beers, but came up just a bit short of our goal of winning the comp. There were about 130 anglers this year and e ended up in Third.  Its our third year in a row on the podium but have yet to take the top spot.  Really this was our year to win it, and had the fish on to do so but three good ones swam away before the got to the net.  We are looking forward to next years tourney.  Congrats to the winners and my teammate Mike Woulf on his 5th place individual, his best individual finish thus far.  We fished mostly for small mouth and found most fish near drops offs in 3-7  feet of water using intermediate lines.  Things were inconsistent to say the least as different rain storms and fronts moved though.  We would have long stretches of nothing and then hit 3 or 4 fish quickly.  Our cut off to get our score cards in is 11 on sunday and as luck would have it we started to get into bass at about 10:58.  I landed a decent one then and then mike lost a real good one at the boat.  Suddenly there were nice bass chasing our flies almost every cast and we had to leave.  That was pretty exciting but kind of a bummer, cause we could have improved our score for sure.

We have some openings next week as well as the week after.  Ill be in Idaho and Wyoming on vacation next week and flshing in a Fly Fishing Team USA Regional in Idaho July 12-14, but Andy will be available to guide the next two weeks so feel free to get in touch with me to schedule a trout or bass trip on the fly.