Vermont
Lamoille River
Latest report: 8/24/2026 River Report — The Fly Rod Shop, 7 days ago
Solunar · next 7 days
About Lamoille River
The Lamoille is northern Vermont's most underrated wild-brown-trout river, and it fishes bigger than its reputation. It runs about 85 miles from the hill ponds above Hardwick west to Lake Champlain, and the middle third — roughly Morrisville down through Johnson, Jeffersonville, and Cambridge — is the part worth planning a trip around. This is a freestone river with a meadow-river temperament: long gravel riffles feeding into slow, sweeping bends and deep undercut pools, hemmed by grassy banks and cornfields with the Green Mountains stacked up behind. The wild brown population is the draw, and the lower reaches below Cambridge give up genuinely large fish — locals talk about a rogue wild brownie pushing the two-foot class, and streamers move them more consistently here than on most Vermont water. The upper reaches above and around Johnson hold wild rainbows and brook trout too, so the river changes species character as you drop downstream.
The productive heart is the middle-river "Ten Bends" reach around Johnson — long riffles into deep bends with the most reliable trout numbers on the river, and the USGS gauge at Johnson (04292000) is the number to watch. The Lamoille wades well at moderate flows and it also floats — the Johnson-to-Fairfax run is a gentle Class I drift with good trout water the whole way. It fishes best somewhere in the roughly 120-350 CFS window for wading and clears within a day or two after summer thunderstorms brown it out. The real seasonal trap is heat: the Lamoille has slow, sun-exposed meadow stretches that warm into the 70s in a July dry spell, and fishing can be poor downstream of Johnson when that happens — the play in high summer is to fish early, work the cooler tailwater pockets, or move up into the tributaries and headwaters where the wild brookies and rainbows hold.
Prime time is mid-May through late June and again mid-September through mid-October. The signature event is the June Hexagenia hatch — an after-dark, warm-still-evening game that produces explosive dry-fly fishing to the biggest fish in the river — bracketed by the Hendrickson-into-grannom-and-caddis progression through May. Terrestrials carry the summer in the meadow bends: hoppers, ants, and beetles cast tight to the grassy banks. The river is dammed in several places by utilities running run-of-river hydro (Green Mountain Power at Peterson, Clark Falls, and Fairfax; Morrisville Water & Light at Cadys Falls and Morrisville, which backs up little Lake Lamoille) — none of these are storage reservoirs, so treat them as access landmarks and flow-character notes. Minimum-flow standards set during the Morrisville relicensing keep the immediate tailwater reaches wet. Access is genuinely easy for a river this size: the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail parallels much of the middle river, and there are formal state fishing-access areas plus dozens of informal pull-offs on Route 15 and the town roads.
Species
- Brown Trout
- Rainbow Trout
- Brook Trout
- Smallmouth Bass
| Species | Abundance | Best Season | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brown Trout | Primary | May-Jun, Sep-Oct | 10-18" |
| Rainbow Trout | Common | May-Jun, Sep-Oct | 9-16" |
| Brook Trout | Common | May-Jun, Sep-Oct | 6-12" |
| Smallmouth Bass | Occasional | Jun-Sep | 10-16" |