Time to concoct stories of the one that got away: Trout season in Vermont opened Saturday, sending anglers clamoring to the state’s rivers.
While many water bodies remain open year round to catch-and-release fishing using flies or artificial lures, the second Saturday in April marks the official beginning of trout season. Chilly water temperatures keep Vermont’s trout — brook, brown and rainbow — slow-moving and glued to the bottom, making them at times challenging to catch.
But that didn’t keep Matthew Amenta off the water.
Amenta, a guide at The Fly Rod Shop in Stowe, spent Saturday on the Gihon River in Johnson. “The water was pretty high, pretty cloudy,” Amenta said. He ended the day, he confessed, without a fish. “Opening day, you’re typically not freezing your tail off, so from that perspective, everyone gets excited,” he said.
Talking tactics, Amenta recommended using nymphs — flies that imitate larval insects — and prospecting the deepest sections of water this time of year.
According to Amenta, early season — now through May — is an ideal time to land larger fish.
“The big fish have stayed over winter and now they’re trying to put the feedbag on,” he said. Plus, the state doesn’t typically stock fish until later in May, which means the smaller, more eager fish aren’t present. “Opening day until May 15 — that’s your opportunity to catch a big brown or rainbow.”
This reporter spent a fishless opening day on a tributary of the Otter Creek. Despite the lack of action, the river showed signs of spring. Small black stoneflies fluttered in the sun. Caddisfly larvae crawled along the streambed, cloaked in pine needles and sticks, hidden by their camouflaged costumes. Runoff swelled the river to its banks.
But not everyone struck out over the weekend. Christian Betit, owner of Green Mountain Angler guide service in Bennington County, landed a chunky brown trout on opening day while fishing the Battenkill.
“I thought it was gonna be longer the way it was fighting, but it wound up being just really fat,” Betit recalled, surprised by his success in the high water conditions. He fished from a raft, using a sinking line and heavy streamer to get to the bottom, which is where he found the big-bellied brown trout.
April brought the season’s first customers to Woodstock Fishing Guides — a guide service based out of the Woodstock Inn. On Monday morning, Shay Berry, lead guide, was setting up the inn’s Orvis fly fishing shop, which is expected to open for the season on Saturday.
Berry and his team focus mainly on rivers around Windsor County — the Ottauquechee, the Black and the White. Tuesday, they planned to take a first client of the year out on the White, and with flows above 3,000 cubic feet per second, they will likely float, rather than wade, Berry said.
Anglers are known to gatekeep, protecting the best advice and spots. But Berry hopes the shop can be more generous. “In this area,” he said, “we want to be a source for information.” He pens weekly fishing reports for Orvis, and this year the fly shop has expanded and the guide service purchased a new raft — signs of growth.
“The (Woodstock) inn’s made the commitment to supporting the fly fishing program,” Berry said. “Recreation has become a driving force for why people come to Woodstock and stay at the inn.”
Despite April’s “opening day” label, fishers should still check Vermont’s regulations before making their first casts of the year. Rainbow trout reproduce in spring, and the state closes many of their most active spawning grounds in April and May.
No event signals the beginning of trout season like the Otter Creek Classic. Hosted by Green Mountain Adventures and Middlebury Mountaineer, the weekend-long festival brings together Vermont’s fly fishing community, inviting participants to kick off the new year.
This weekend marks the 15th Otter Creek Classic, in which fly fishers compete to catch (and release) their best six fish each day of the tournament, with additional points available for cleaning up the river and catching all three of Vermont’s trout species.
The event allows participants to fish almost anywhere within the Otter Creek and White River watersheds, opening up hundreds of miles of water for exploration. The week’s warm weather should help wake up sluggish, cold-blooded trout and get them eating.
No guarantees, though. It’s fishing, after all.