Vermont
Vermont's month ends with the sharpest tackle change in the region. The trout harvest season closes on 31 October, and what replaces it is not simply catch and release: live bait becomes illegal, and only artificial flies or lures are permitted.
Trout stocking
Vermont runs a fall Trophy Trout stocking as well as its spring programme, and the state publishes a searchable schedule rather than a list, so you can query it by water and by county before you drive. The waters named for the fall stocking are Knapp Ponds, Lakes Paran and Shaftsbury, and East Creek.
Vermont Fish and Wildlife stocking schedule, searchable by waterWhat the rules say
- Trout harvest season runs from the second Saturday in April to 31 October.
- Outside that season it is catch and release only, with trout released immediately where caught, and only artificial flies or lures are permitted.
- Hatchery Cove on Grand Isle is closed from 1 October to 30 November to protect staging landlocked salmon.
- Special regulations on named rivers and streams always override the general rule, so check the state's Index of Rivers and Streams for the water you are fishing.
Read from Vermont Fish and Wildlife's own year-round trout fishing page.
What to expect from the fish
A run quarter. Fish that spent the summer in big water spend the back half of it trying to get into small water, and the concentration that produces at a stream mouth is exactly why the end of October changes what tackle is allowed: fish stacked at a stream entrance are easy to catch and easy to catch too many of.
- Brown Trout
Moving into the tributaries to spawn, with brook trout making the same move into smaller water.
Where they are. Tributary mouths first, then the tributaries themselves.
- Steelhead
Following the trout into Champlain's feeder streams.
Where they are. The feeders rather than the lake, once there is enough water in them to run.
- Landlocked Salmon
Running out of Champlain into the feeder streams behind the trout.
Where they are. Stream mouths, and then as far up as the flow lets them.
- Smallmouth Bass
Feeding heavily while the water is still in the range they like, which does not last the quarter.
Where they are. Champlain's hard bottom, off the weed as it dies back.
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain · Hatchery Cove · Grand Isle · Mallets Bay · the Inland Sea
The biggest water in Vermont and a lake with two halves: deep and cold up against the New York line in the north, shallow and weedy in the south. Its feeder streams pull landlocked salmon and steelhead up out of it in autumn, so for a few weeks a year the lake and the rivers that drain into it are one fishery rather than two.
The salmon are running and the state has shut Hatchery Cove on Grand Isle from the 1st to the end of November to keep boats off the fish staging there. Nobody publishes a dated report on the lake itself, so the tributary shops upstream are the closest thing to one. The water temperature in the engine row below is a real gauge reading taken in the lake, which makes it the only measured figure on this page.
Engine outlook
- Lake ChamplainLake TroutBest: Mon, Oct 12, A11 good hours60F measured on this waterbest run 11h142 cfsat WINOOSKI RIVER NEAR ESSEX JUNCTION, VT8 mi awayon a different water, so read it as the catchment rather than this oneOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 8am to 7pm, in local time at the water.
The engine has lake trout here staging to spawn.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 4 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in low light: up onto reef tops and shoals.
The bait is above it. Spoons and tube jigs deep; at ice-out they will chase a shallow-trolled stickbait.
central Vermont and Otter Creek
Otter Creek · the Mad River · the White River · Dog River · Waterbury Reservoir
The spine of the state and the freestone streams either side of it, with Otter Creek running the length of the valley floor. Wild fish in water that warms fast in summer and cools fast in autumn, which is what makes the shoulder seasons the whole point of fishing here.
Water clear, water temperatures 48 to 55. Hoppers, flying ants, small caddis and Blue Winged Olives.
Landlocked salmon are on the spawning run out of Lake Champlain and other inland lakes. Leaves are changing fast. We have had cool days and nights so no need to check water temperatures, they are all good. We have a number of spawning species so we could use some more rain to urge them in.
the Battenkill and southwest Vermont
the Battenkill · the Mettawee · the Walloomsac · Lake Paran · Lake Shaftsbury
The most written-about trout river in Vermont and one of the hardest in the country, low and clear with fish that have been shown everything. This corner drains to the Hudson rather than to Champlain, so it runs on its own hydrograph and can be fishable when the rest of the state is not.
Cold, clear, still low flow, and technical.
Stowe, the Lamoille and the Winooski
the Lamoille River · the Winooski River · Stowe · Waterbury · the Little River
Two big rivers crossing the state westward into Champlain, each a trout stream in its upper reaches and a smallmouth and pike river by the time it reaches the lake. This is the most guided water in Vermont, because it is the easiest to reach from the resort towns.
Fall fly fishing is in full swing. You can feel the chill in the air and we have had several frosts.
the Northeast Kingdom
Lake Memphremagog · Lake Willoughby · Seymour Lake · the Clyde River · Island Pond
The coldest and emptiest corner of the state: deep glacial lakes holding landlocked salmon and lake trout, a short river season, and long drives between any two of them. The fishing is as good as anywhere in New England and almost nobody writes about it.
No reporter this month, and no near miss either. Everything we could find is either years silent or behind a paywall, so a Kingdom angler in October has the stocking schedule, the regulations and their own eyes. If you know of somebody publishing dated conditions up here, we would rather link them than keep writing this paragraph.
Who reports on this water
Vermont has two of the best small freshwater publishers in the region on its southwestern rivers, one of them posting daily and timestamped to the hour. Its two biggest coverage holes are its two biggest draws. Lake Champlain, the largest water in the state, has no dated, named, edited report at all: what ranks for it instead is a forum, an undated charter page, an aggregator and an AI-generated podcast with a synthetic host. The Northeast Kingdom is the same story, with Lake Willoughby, Memphremagog, Seymour and the Clyde between them having no reporter.
We read: Battenkill Outfitters Daily Fishing Outlook (Andrew Walker), The Fly Rod Shop, Stowe