Trout sea­son opens this Saturday

NEWPORT — Ver­mon­t’s tra­di­tional trout fish­ing sea­son is set to open on Sat­ur­day, April 14, and de­spite re­cent cold weather and lin­ger­ing snow cover across the state, of­fi­cials from Ver­mont Fish and Wildlife say an­glers can be suc­cess­ful early in the sea­son by fol­low­ing a few ba­sic tips.

“Just like any other time of year, an­glers fish­ing early in the spring should ad­just their tac­tics based on the con­di­tions,” said Bret Ladago, state fish­eries bi­ol­o­gist. “Given the cold weather and runoff from re­cent storms and snow melt, wa­ter lev­els will be high, flows will be faster than nor­mal and wa­ter tem­per­a­tures will be cold.

Ladago says an­glers may want to tar­get small to medium low-el­e­va­tion rivers and streams where flows are slow and wa­ters will warm more quickly. Find­ing wa­ter that is­n’t too muddy can be key, and slow­ing your lure or bait re­trieval will help tempt slug­gish trout into bit­ing.

Trout will of­ten hold close to the bot­tom in the deeper ar­eas of streams dur­ing high flow con­di­tions to con­serve en­ergy. Choose lo­ca­tions and tac­tics that al­low for fish­ing bait or lures right along the bot­tom.

Ladago says that fish­ing slowly with worms or spin­ners through deep holes be­hind cur­rent breaks cre­ated by big boul­ders, downed trees or log-jams can be pro­duc­tive for early sea­son trout.

Ver­mont is known for its ex­cel­lent and di­verse fish­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for wild trout. Trout stock­ing in streams and rivers gen­er­ally oc­curs in May, fol­low­ing spring runoff, so most early sea­son fish­ing is en­tirely sup­ported by wild trout.

“An­gling suc­cess may be im­proved by fo­cus­ing on wa­ters known to hold wild fish,” Mr. Ladago said. “De­spite un­pre­dictable weather dur­ing early spring, each year an­glers re­port catch­ing im­pres­sive trout dur­ing open­ing week­end.”