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Fishing Recreation
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25 Sep 2008, 5:23 am / Other
Lake Champlain is an awesome place to fish in September, but when the weather turns bad it can be a monster where high winds and big waves are the norm. The final tournament of the regular BFL season was last weekend on Lake Champlain. This was supposed to be a two-day super tournament, but as usual, it turned into a one day tournament as the first day was cancelled due to 25 mile per hour winds and 6-8 foot waves.
I began preparing for this tournament last Thursday. I borrowed a buddy's boat and ran up into the islands for my first day of practice. I was hoping to find some good smallies using the many rocky flats that are in the area. I began the day fishing 12-14 feet deep, but just wasn't getting bit. After a few hours of hammering around with the trolling motor on high I caught a 3 pound smallie in about 10 feet of water on a LaChase Baits 3.5" Chase N Tube. Now I was getting some where. I continued to fish the flats a little shallower trading between the Chase N Tube and dropshotting a Zipper Worm 3.75" Drop Shot Shaker and connected with three more fish in about 45 minutes: two 3 pound largemouths and a 2.5 pound smallie added to the days count. There were obviously some decent fish in this area so I left to check another spot. I pulled up onto a point that lead to a flat and immediately caught a 4 pound largemouth on the Pearl Sparkle Drop Shot Shaker. I should have left right then and there, but I wanted to catch one or two more fish to make sure it wasn't a fluke. the next cast with the drop shot produced an ornery 4.5 pound smallmouth. Long story short, 17.5 pounds on the first day of practice was more than I expected and needless to say, I was excited.
Friday morning I took the ferry over to Plattsburg, New York to meet my buddy John "Hip-Hop" Cook for another day of practice. It was about 37 degrees and pretty windy when we left the ramp and hammered up the lake. I wanted to fish some main lake shoals, but the wind proved to be too much so we had to try and hide. We puttered around and spent more time trying to hide from the wind than catching fish so we decided to give in and found an area where we could drift with the wind and burn crankbaits and spinnerbaits. We picked up a few fish here and there, lost some tackle to a few voracious gators (ask John about his "lucky" balsa crankbait), and generally had fun fishing. A little further down we began fishing the piling of a bridge and got onto a pretty good crankbait bite. I was throwing a Bomber 6A in Rootbeer/Chartruese and they were absolutely crushing it. I caught quite a few fish with one good one that was about 4 pounds. I felt good about the bites at the bridge because, although I knew there would be a lot of guys fishing it, I was pretty sure no one had discovered the crankbait bite - and I had it dialed. The run back to the ramp was big and rough with 5 and 6 foot rollers trying to break over the deck, but we finally made it and felt good about tournament day.
So, like I mentioned above, Saturday was cancelled due to high wind and big waves, so I just hung around the campground all day and caught up on some much needed R and R.
Sunday morning I woke to a cold north wind and spitting rain. I met my partner, Keith Barlow, at the ramp, launched his Ranger Z20, and headed for boat check. We were boat 36 and blasted off shortly after 6:30AM. As we came around Cumberland Head and headed north, we began to get pounded, and I mean pounded hard, by 3 foot waves going five different directions. the beating was almost intollerable. We finally pulled up on a flat where Keith had found some good fish in practice. We fished for about an hour without a bite when Keith finally connected with a nice largemouth.....in 17 feet of water? I wasn't too suprised since I had caught a couple of largies real deep during practice. A little while later I finally caught a keeper smallmouth on the Pearl Sparkle Drop Shot Shaker. About 20 minutes later my dropshot loaded and a monster smallmouth rolled on the surface and it was on! When I finally got it in the boat I was happy to put a 4.5 pound smallmouth in the box. After not getting another bite for a while we packed up and headed for the bridge where I caught my crankbait fish on Friday.
When we pulled up to the bridge there were already six boats there, but they were all dropshotting and fishing Senkos. Keith tossed a crankbait and brought it back down by the bridge piling and immediately put a 3 pounder in the boat. A couple of pilings down the bridge Keith's rod loaded and another 3+ pound largemouth was in the boat. It was a little discouraging to see him put those fish in his livewell, but it was also very encouraging to see that my practice paid off....sort of. We did not get another bite for the rest of the day and I ended up only bringing two fish to the scales for 5 pounds 5 ounces and finished in 40th place.
Although I finished 13th in the points which qualified me for the regional in North Carolina I have decided not to go. I am going to stay home, do some duck hunting, and hang out with the family for a while....until next season. Visit www.hardkorefishing.com for more.
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Fishing Recreation
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