We've made it to June, though for the much of late May it felt like the end of April pr early May. In fact the water temp on two mid sized streams the past two mornings has been only 49 degrees!
Things are setting up for a good old fashioned June, as long as we don't get any crazy heat waves, I anticipate trout fishing to hold strong on all of our rivers for at least a few more weeks. Time will tell. The fishing has been quite variable, we have had one of the wettest May's on record in the northeast. At times the fishing has been closer to early May, with mostly larger browns out eating bigger meals in higher and cooler water than normal. We certainly have not been catching the numbers of smaller fish and especially rainbows that we normally expect at this time of year. I anticipate that will become more consistent going forward. It is too early to tell if the population of browns has increased and the population of rainbows had decreased on some of our rivers but it's a possibility as our catch rate has been so skewed toward browns this spring. Typically wild rainbows far outnumber the wild browns in our area, and I think that we will see it's still the case as we move into summer. We have also had to work around blown out rivers and unfortunately we have just happened to have quite a few trips scheduled for a day or two after a big rain event and clients that were set on floating or fishing a certain river and were just unable to safely do so. The past two days I have been on three rivers scouting new water one day and guiding the next. Two days ago while scouting we found really tough fishing but all of the fish we hooked were quality browns, including a giant pictured above that was living in a trib of a trib. It ate a dead drifted jig streamer on the edge of some whitewater. That day the fish only wanted bigger flies, and we only hooked fish in the deepest pools. Yesterday on a similar sized river, but in a totally different watershed the fish were eating a walts worm for my client in the morning before the hatches started. After lunch we moved up river about a mile or two and the fishing was dramatically different. We had a big golden stone hatch, march browns, caddis, lime sally's, crane flies and a few other smaller may flies around that I didn't identify. I expected the fishing to be even better, but after tinkering around with flies and our drifts it turned out the fish wanted a mop. Totally unexpected, considering they were eating nymphs earlier on. We did catch far more fish than the day before and the sizes ranged from 5" to 14" so the smaller fish were becoming more active. We hooked fish throughout the river in all water types. We did see a couple of fish rise and threw dry dropper for a while later in the day, getting a few fish to look at the dry and one to eat it. From here on out expect to find fish actively eating nymphs, emergers and dries depending on the time and conditions. Remember to swing your flies at the end of each drift. Typically I will enter the river and cast across and down stream to see if there are any fish looking to take a swung fly before I start fishing up stream and potentially scare the fish below. If you are tight line or euro nymphing the same applies. I even swing dry flies to great success. There are times when that is what the fish are looking for and there are times when you can pick an extra fish or two that didn't want a dead drift. Often people are told when tight line nymphing that you have to set to start your next cast. I feel people miss a great opportunity if they don't finish the drift. I employed this tactic to win a session in a big fly comp a few years back. The first thing I did before stepping in the water was to swing a couple nymphs below me. I caught two fish in two casts to start the session and ended up winning by around 10 fish. It works, and your flies do not need to be soft hackles, though they certainly find the end of my tippet when fish are eating on the swing. The other mistake people make is the hook set when swinging flies. The natural reaction is to set the hook up stream, effectively pulling the fly out of the fishes mouth. What you should do instead is set low and to the side if a fish eats when the fly is swinging. If it eats directly below you as you dangle the fly motionless in the current then it's better to just wait until you feel the weight of the fish and simply lift your rod. You'll probably double your catch rate by doing so. Looking forward, we have two warm days and then it looks like low to mid 70's and wet again. A perfect June forecast. Get out there and have fun. We have some availability to guide going forward. Please shoot me a message if you'd like to get out.
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AuthorBen Wilcox Owner/Guide Maple Country Anglers Archives
June 2025
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