As autumn settles into Vermont, dry fly fishing becomes a challenging and deeply rewarding pursuit. The days grow shorter, the air cools. The water of the Battenkill runs low and clear. The abundance of summer insects is gone, replaced by a far more subtle and demanding game.
This time of year, aquatic insect activity slows considerably. While the occasional large pumpkin caddis may still appear (sometimes as big as a size 12) the real story belongs to the smaller mayflies of the season: Beatis, better known to most anglers as Blue-Winged Olives. These tiny, olive-bodied flies dominate the fall hatch scene, often requiring anglers to reach for the smallest hooks in their fly box.
Fall fly fishing in Vermont also calls for finesse. Long, fine leaders stretching 14 to 18 feet, paired with delicate 7X tippet, are often the ticket to success. Add in the challenge of achieving a sustained drag-free drift in slow, glassy water and you’ve got a multitude of factors to juggle. Then, as if nature wanted to test your patience further, the rivers become littered with falling leaves, each one finding its way into a trout’s feeding lane to distract your eye from your dry fly or get stuck to your hook.
And of course, there’s the cold. Numb fingers and size 26 flies make for a humbling combination. But it’s precisely these conditions that draw in the dedicated few anglers who find joy in the difficulty and appreciate the quiet solitude of a river in its final days before winter.
Because when you finally fool a wary trout under these conditions, the reward is not just in the catch. It’s in the patience, precision and persistence it took to make it happen.
So I encourage each of you to embrace these late-season challenges. If you can slow down and sharpen your senses, you will savor every rise. And then, the rewards of fall fly fishing in Vermont are endless.
Great stuff, Brew!