The last four days have been just about ideal conditions. We had a large rain event that dropped about 1.5" of rain on Wednesday which flushed a bunch of warm water through the river systems. That has been followed up by daytime temps only in the upper 60's with cloud cover and sporadic rains. The big rivers are running above average flows and are slightly off color and the temps are in the lower sixties! Needless to say we brought a lot of rainbows to hand Friday as the water clarity improved, Saturday and Sunday. I approached the Winooski on friday night looking at fairly dirty water and immediately thought streamers and nymphs. There was a lot of insect activity with #12 Iso's in the air as well as some BWO's and Cahill's. I soon hooked a few fish on the swing and missed one on my foam stimmy. As I began to see a few fish rise I clipped of my two nymphs that were dropped off of the back of my dry fly and tied on a grey Wulff and began consistently hooking fish until dark. The rest of the weekend went in the same fashion with the majority of the fish being taken on dries though Zug bugs, #18 pheasant tails, and black stones were taking fish here and there. Saturday we had the drift boat out and caught fish on nymphs in the morning hours. I was able to Euro Nymph up a few nice bows as well. The best fish of the weekend was a beauty of a wild Rainbow around 17-18". I believe we missed this fish from the drift boat Saturday when a big fish swiped at a foam stimulator drifted inches from a large rock. On Sunday while wading in the same spot I hooked the big rainbow next to the same exact rock on my second drift. It took an Adam's Irresistable in tan/ grey. I also had the opportunity Sunday to teach my friend Max from Quebec to fly fish. He picked up casting very quickly, throwing nice tight loops and we found a nice low casting angle to be most effective and natural for him. We threw on a grey wulff and missed 7 fish in a row until he finally landed one. As someone who is used to being a natural at everything he tries, he was more than frustrated when he was unable to hook a fish. When we finally brought a 12" bow to net and snapped some pics it was an awesome moment!
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