Otter Creek Fishing Guides and Conditions, Vermont

About the Otter Creek

Otter Creek is the longest river in Vermont, running about a hundred miles north from the Green Mountain National Forest near Dorset through Rutland, Proctor, Middlebury and Vergennes to Lake Champlain. Despite the name it is a river, and through the Champlain Valley it is a wide, slow, deep, weedy waterway winding through farmland and the largest swamp in the state. It is one of the more overlooked fisheries in New England.

Northern pike are the headline. The slow weedy reaches from Middlebury down to Vergennes grow big pike, and the lower river below Vergennes Falls is essentially an arm of Lake Champlain, with pike, smallmouth, largemouth, walleye and even bowfin using it. Smallmouth fishing on the rockier reaches is excellent and underfished. Up above Rutland and in the tributaries the creek is smaller and colder and holds brown and rainbow trout, which gives the system a trout personality that most anglers never see. The falls at Middlebury, Proctor and Vergennes split the river into distinct sections that fish differently.

The Middlebury gauge reads the middle river. Because the valley is flat and the channel is deep and slow, this river responds to rain more slowly than a mountain stream and stays fishable longer. High spring water floods the swamp and scatters fish into the flooded timber, which is a pike pattern in itself; summer low water concentrates them on the weed edges and the deeper bends. Wind on the lower river matters as much as flow.

Middlebury, Vergennes, Proctor and Rutland are the access towns, and Lake Champlain is a short run from the mouth.

Access

Middlebury: town access at the falls and the gauge.
Vergennes: the falls, the city ramp and the deep lower river.
Otter Creek Wildlife Management Area: swamp and backwater access.
Weybridge and New Haven: quiet middle-river paddling access.
Proctor and Pittsford: upper river below Rutland.
Rutland and Center Rutland: the upper reaches and trout water.
Lake Champlain at the mouth: big-water access below Vergennes.

Seasons

April and May: high water in the swamp, pike spawning and the best big-pike window.
June and July: smallmouth on the rock reaches and pike on the weed edges.
August and September: low clear water, weed growth at its peak, early and late fishing.
October and November: pike feeding hard before ice and very few boats on the water.