Fly and Gear ordering and delivery: We can get flies to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Please see the bottom of this column for ordering options.
We also have custom Perfect Fly selections in 3 different price ranges for this stream that come with or without fly boxes. They make excellent gifts. Click Here To Order or Call us at 800 594 4726 or email us at sales@perfectflystore.com.
Type of Stream
Freestone
Species
Brown Trout
Brook Trout
(Wild)
Size
Medium Size total length of 50 miles
Location
Western Vermont (some in New York)
Nearest Towns
Manchester, Vermont
Season
Middle April – End of October
Access:
Fair to Good
Non-Resident License
State of Vermont
Recommended Tackle & Gear
Fly Line:
4, 5 or 6 weight
Leaders:
Dry fly: 9 to 12 ft., 5 or 6X Nymphing:
71/2 ft., 3 or 4X, Streamers 0-2X
Tippets:
Dry fly: 5 or 6X, Nymphing: 3 or 4X,
Streamer 0-2X
Best Fly Rods:
Perfect Fly Supreme Four, Superb Five
or Ultimate Six
Fly Reels:
For 4/5/6 fly line
Fly Floatants and Misc Items:
Floatants, KISS Strike Indicators
Tools & Accessories:
Nippers, forceps, retractors, etc.
Fly and Gear ordering and delivery:
Email us at (sales@perfectflystore.com) with the dates you will be fishing and we will send you a list of our fly recommendations. We can get flies and gear to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Your can also call us at 800-594-4726 and we will help you decide what flies and gear to use. All orders are shipped free in the U.S. If under a $100 order requiring Priority mail is a charge of only $8.10. Orders over a $100 are shipped free via Priority Mail.
Copyright 2013 James Marsh
Battenkill River Fishing Report – 11/03/24 The stream is closed to fishing in Vermont but still open in New York. The stream is flowing below a normal level and clear. Call us or send us an email for fly fishing gear and fly recommendations. Good hatches are taking place.
Stream Conditions: Rate: 120 cfs
Level: 4.09 ft
Afternoon Water Temperature: 60
USGS Real-Time Stream Flow Data Battenville
7 Day Weather Forecast: (click the link below for detailed weather information)
Flies:
Midges: Cream and Red (Blood) midges sizes 20/22, larva, pupa and adult. Our larva and pupa midge flies, pre-rigged in tandem, are very popular here. You can fish them under a strike indicator keeping the larva fly near the bottom. https://perfectflystore.com/product/pre-rigged-tandem-midge-larva-pupa-tippet
Brown Sculpin and White Belly Sculpin and Articulated streamers, size 6/4
Black Matuka and Olive Matuka Sculpin, size 4/6
Blue-winged Olives: size 16, nymphs, emergers, duns, spinners
Green Sedge Caddis, size 16/14, larva, pupa and adults
Slate Drakes: 10/12, nymphs and adults
Mahogany Duns, size 18, nymphs, emergers, duns and spinners
Great Autumn Brown Sedge, size 10, pupa and adults 4/6
Perfect Flies are designed and tied to to imitate and behave like the natural foods the trout rely on to survive as much as possible. The more your fly looks like and moves through and on the surface of the water like the real things, the higher your odds of success.
Fly Fishing The Battenkill In Vermont: Fly fishing the Battenkill is a truly unique experience. The Battenkill is one of the most famous trout streams of the Green Mountains. The upper part near Manchester is small, with soft bottoms, small pools and a few deep runs and riffles. It is mostly brook trout with a few brown trout. The stream turns from a southerly to a westerly direction near Arlington and gets larger and stronger. There are a few rapids but mostly long riffle sections joining long pools. The stream gets wider as it gets longer before it crosses the Vermont/New York state line. A few springs along the way help keep the water cool during the hot summer.There are some public access along the way but much of the property the stream flows through is privately owned. The trout in the Battenkill in Vermont are all wild trout.Fly
Fishing Guide to the Battenkill: Fly fishing the Battenkill requires some skill for sure. The river isn’t overrun with trout; they are wild; and they can become selective to certain insects at times.The upper river is mostly the home of small brook trout and a few brown trout. The soft bottom makes it a heaven for the small Trico mayflies and of course, difficult match the hatch conditions.From Arlington westward, the trout are hidden in long slow moving pools, some deep runs and a lot of riffles. The countryside is beautiful with old dairy farms in the background. The scenery seems to want to make your mind go back into time. The fish are not plentiful at this time so one must search out the best areas to fish. This lower part of the Battenkill in Vermont is by far the best area to fish but it isn’t a pushover by any means. There are some large brown trout in the river but they didn’t get big being stupid. The state of New York stocks some brown trout in their part of the Battenkill. There is a lower, downstream special-regulations section there, and part of it is stocked. It is possible to catch a lot of smaller stocked trout in that area but other than that, it is all wild-trout fishing. The wild brown and brook trout are what many called “well educated”. They can be very picky and selective. There are a lot of highly skilled anglers that fish the river and all of them will tell you the same thing. The trout are not easy to catch. One reason that the trout are difficult is that most everyone releases their fish. When the brown trout reach about the age of three they have pretty well seen about all the trout flies and techniques that could possible be used to catch them. Many of them have been caught more than once. When the browns get to about fourteen inches long in the Batten Kill (as with most other streams), they just about stop rising to hatching insects. That makes them even more difficult to pin point. You must do things by the book fishing this river. You want catch anything if you wade sloppy, move the gravel beneath your wading boots, throw shadows over the trout, make poor presentations, line the trout, make excessive false cast and any number of other things that spook trout. One situation that causes the fishing to be tougher than average is the low gradient of the river. The flow is generally slow in most places. There are lots of slow-flowing, long, smooth flowing, flat pools. Yes, there are riffles between them but the trout are often found in the pools. It would be much easier if all the trout stayed in the faster water, but they don’t. Most trout are situated along the banks, not out in the middle of the stream. There is little structure or cover for them midstream. The trout have ample time to examine your fly just about anywhere you cast it. You would think the current would be stable and smooth. That is not the case at all. There are many different speeds of the current. That is caused mostly by the pockets and undercuts along the banks. It is sometimes difficult to read. There are lots of conflicting currents in the smooth water. By the time you figure out the hatches and conclude which flies give you the best advantage or opportunity, you have to try to master the slow currents and presentations that are absolutely necessary to fool the trout. By the time many anglers have worked out these problems, things have changed and the fish are reacting to a different insect or have ceased feeding in a certain area.I wish I could tell you the secret or outline a few tactics or tricks that would always work on the Batten Kill but I can’t. It is a big challenge to out smart the trout there. Many anglers don’t like that type of fishing. When they cast, they want action. Those are the ones that would not be happy fishing the Battenkill. Others take a lot of pride in figuring out what the trout are eating, matching it with an good imitation and presenting it in such a way as to fool the Battenkill’s wise brown trout. I happen to be one of those guys. I get more satisfaction out of catching a few trout under these tough conditions than I do a lot of them where the fishing is easy. That makes the Battenkill one of the top choices of Eastern Streams as far as I am concerned.
Battenkill Hatches and Trout Flies: The Battenkill has a lot of different types and species of aquatic insects and of course, that means a lot of hatches. A quick look at our hatch chart will indicate that. I think one main reason is the different types of bottom composition ranging from the soft mud like bottoms of the upper river near Manchester to the gravel and small rock bottom that exist in the middle and lower sections of the river. There are lots of different species of clinger nymphs as well as burrowers, both of which require a completely different stream makeup. There are also plenty of swimmers and crawlers. The stream’s PH level is normally high, or certainly high for a freestone stream, partly because of the terrain the river flows through. The drainage from the agriculture and dairy farms add to the alkalinity of the stream. I suppose the most famous of the hatches is the Hendrickson and Red Quill hatch. It usually starts near the opening of the season or from about the end of April to the first of May. As with most Eastern streams, the first hatches are the Blue Quills and Blue-winged Olives. Not long after that the March Brown mayflies will begin to appear. Close to the same time, Light Cahills show up. By the middle of May, there is a dining table full of bugs for the trout to eat. Figuring out which bugs the trout are eating can be a problem. I haven’t yet mentioned the stoneflies or caddisflies that also make their home in the Battenkill. By the first of June both Yellow Drakes and Golden Drakes will be near their hatch times. So will the Sulphur and Eastern Pale Evening Dun mayflies. Soon thereafter, the Cream Cahills and Tricos will appear along the last of the mayfly hatches. It is a mayfly menu from about the end of April through the month of June. On top of everything I have named, I haven’t mentioned much about the most plentiful species or group of mayflies that exist in the river – the Blue-winged Olives. Baetis species along with many other species that are called BWOs exist there and hatch off and on just about the entire season. There is also a huge diversity of caddisflies. The most plentiful are the Cinnamon Sedges. Several species of these net-spinning caddis live there along with their Little Sisters. The large Blue Dark Blue Sedges are also present. In the fast water sections you will find plenty of Rock Worms or Green Sedges. You could add to that a lot of minor caddisfly hatches. It would be much easier to say which aquatic insects are not present in the Battenkill. You need to know your aquatic insects well and make some careful observations when you fish the river or otherwise you may be making a lot of wasted cast. If you can and do handle the hatches well, you can be in for some action when everyone else in complaining. When it comes to trout fly selection, the choices are simple. You must use flies that look and act like the real things they are imitating. The closer they come to that, the better off you are. This is no place for attractor or generic imitations. About the only place they will work at times is for the smaller trout found in the riffles. When a hatch is underway, you need to match the insects as close as possible. Naturally, we recommend our own Perfect Flies. It was this type of stream that inspired us to develop the far better than average, difficult to tie patterns. We have had a lot of our customers report our flies are helping them increase their catches on the Battenkill as well as many other difficult to fish streams.