Trip to Lake Champlain

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zeke13
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by zeke13 »

toobinator wrote:What boat were you fishing out of Andrew? That doesn't look like the Stratos.

Ed
It's still the "tub" Ed .. the Stratos 186XT was fantastic all weekend. I'm guessing she was just trying to show off after being stuck in a warehouse all winter! Corey helped me dial-in the electronics .. and .. well, it was on like donkey-kong :D

Tia took this pic ..

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baz fish
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by baz fish »

Nice bass guys. Im jealous now :D .
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Oneeleven
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by Oneeleven »

Lake Champlain was an adventure. Both my boater, Paul Vrooman and myself had never been there, so it was a fun adventure finding new areas. Big thanks to him for putting us on fish! Some spots that looked just *mint* produced nothing, then a few spots, were just on fire! Every second cast produced a bass. So much water - so little time! I would like to spend a month there. :lol:

Here are a few highlights for me from the trip :D


This was the big fish of the day for day 1:
FH Two.jpg
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This guy was a three and a half'er and only had one eye. Seemed like he was born that way as the eye wasn't sunken in or empty. Pretty impressive that a fish with a disability has managed to live this long and prosper!
One eyed bass.jpg
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Sunday was pretty tough for me and I didn't catch any kind of numbers, but my first fish of the morning was this guy weighing in at 4.2 ;)
FH Three.jpg
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PMac
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by PMac »

Now if I can only figure out how to post pictures, I'll be a happy guy!!!!
It was great to bring all these people down after bragging about Champlain in April & May for years!!!
We've always had fun and surprising, had years were even more fish were caught but it was really fun with a gang of people to share some laughs with.
Already working out the details for next year at a location closer to the launch with a potential for more rooms and more importantly, room for more boats!!!
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BradGuenette
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by BradGuenette »

Nothing better then good fishing, great company, and cold pints! Looks like everyone has a blast, I've always wanted to make the trip state side in the spring, will have to join in on this next year!
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

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I had the privilege to join as well as I got paired with Bobby Jordan. I drove from Kitchener Thursday after work and got to Bobbys house for almost 10pm. I didnt fall asleep until 1am. I was dreaming of bass in May. I met up with Bobby at 3AM to start our trek to the NY side and begin our Champlain event. With two hours sleep the bass talk and anticipation of setting the hook with my new Shimano Zodias rods were like a wake up call. It was like instant red bull. Friday was our best day for size. Saturday we just missed a bunch of fish but still landed a ton. We went into a shallow back bay where the water was 58-59 degrees. I immediately went into the rod locker and tied on a Live target frog. Thats right, a frog on May 1st. Before most of the buds were on the trees.....I immediately had some boils and interest and I knew it was game on. I took about 20 casts with it and had 6 boils which was a good percentage. I finally got a 3.6lb largie to explode on it. I caught a frog fish in May......in fact May 1st.......incredible...We caught 8 different species over the course of the weekend. We also landed over 60+ bass on the short day on Sunday....I was on fire roll casting a spinnerbait into brush and reeds..cast after cast, fish after fish, the old Terminator t1 held up landing fish after fish. Overall an incredible experience.. With no previous experience on the lake and not even a navionics map it was like showing up and fishing a Major League fishing event. Just drop the trolling motor and go! Use your gut instincts and fish and it paid off.

As we were launching I looked at the water clarity and told Bobby I should of brought chatterbaits. Bobby says I got some...He got the first 3 bass all on guess what! Chatterbaits.....My gut was right!!!

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2nd fish in the exact same small pocket surrounded by 3 NY boats fishing crappie....

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Third fish in the same pocket with NY boats surrounding us! I rollled another flipping a spinerbait into a few pockets of brush

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My first good bite came on a small trench along the bank of rip rap on a Jackall Aska 60SR. It hit the crank beside the trolling motor! Turned out to be our biggest of the trip.

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Here she is! The first frog fish of 2015 on May 1st...Look at the smile....Yay baby!

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While going up the mouth of a creek channel we marked 6 or 7 huge bars on the Humminbird graph. We thought they were giant female largies, boy were we off. After hooking one and losing by the boat I took another cast and hooked this big girl....Freshwater Drum time!

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We ended up catching 8 different species this trip. Heres a Big bowfin i saw peaking his head out of a big weed matt...I flipped it in the matt and out came this ugly "dogfish" I thought I had my 6lbs+ largie hooked. We both hate snakes and eels there was no way we were touching this thing, hence the net pic!

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Another first for us was catching a chain pickeral.. Let alone see one. Heres a pic of one!

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Last edited by Spence Scout on Mon May 11, 2015 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by ShawnD »

Nice post Spence! :)
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zeke13
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

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Spence Scout wrote: I immediately went into the rod locker and tied on a Live target frog. Thats right, a frog on May 1st. Before most of the buds were on the trees.....I immediately had some boils and interest and I knew it was game on. I took about 20 casts with it and had 6 boils which was a good percentage. I finally got a 3.6lb largie to explode on it. I caught a frog fish in May......in fact May 1st.......incredible...
Spence, your stories on Friday evening of your frog fishing successes is what prompted Corey and I, OK mostly Corey, to spend a bit of time on both Saturday and Sunday frog fishing. Corey had great success throwing a white Spro frog, catching a good number of bass and a sizable pike. I'm pretty sure everyone else was paying attention as well as the number of frog fishing stories seem to escalate as a result.
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

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So I wanted to do things a little different this year instead of endless photos of me holding fish (which is not a bad thing but my wife's keeps telling me to add some variety to my photos and maybe a different hat once in a while LoL) so here it goes.

This was officially the first Bass of 2015 and with my pent up hook set, launched him directly in the boat. I imagine he was wondering what the hell was going on :) Not a giant, but it was a good start to a fun filled weekend!!!!
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This second photo is one of Dave larger fish of the weekend, a high four I would guess. Side note, we decided to only weigh fish that we thought would be over 5 so this one didn't get weighed.
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So these next two photos of Dave are a little more artist in nature and I think turned out pretty cool
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The next three were taken at 6pm creeping into a bay and the sun was starting to set.
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I also what to show everyone what worked best for us this weekend. The pattern was shallow hard bottom so we didn't fish deeper than 8 feet for three days. Our three best lures were a Strike King Burner, a Jackall Bling 55 and a Luckycraft Fat BDS. I did occasionally use other cranks to get it a little deeper as you had to bounce it off the rocks to get hit but 90% of our fish came on these three baits
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by ShawnD »

:handgestures-thumbup:
Nice write up Pete.
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zeke13
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by zeke13 »

Great pics Pete!
PMac wrote: Image
Wow, Dave's got quite the aura .. a lot of positive energy emanating from that boy! He's dialin' it in :shock:
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by RJ »

Great pics Pete!

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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by Moosebunk »

Enjoyed that Zeke. Some great fishing. Anytime I've bumped into Corey he's been a great fella to shoot the shart with as well.
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zeke13
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by zeke13 »

Thanks Moosebunk.

Was reading Pete's submission and realized that I never really said what worked for me. Most of the fish I caught were on three baits .. a 1/2 oz Sexy Shad Chatterbait with a Reaction Innovations Little Dipper trailer, an assortment of Jackal Aska 60s, and a 3/8 oz Football Jig with a twin tail grub trailer (both black/blue and green pumpkin worked).

The key was bottom contact .. if both the crankbait and the chatterbait weren't making bottom contact, then they weren't getting hit. The chatterbait had to be worked slowly ... Corey was surprised at how slow and patient I was with the bait. It was on a mid-gear reel and I would turn the handle quite slowly for 2-4 turns and then stop and let it drop, sit and soak for a couple seconds and repeat .. I had never used a chatterbait prior to this weekend but read quite a bit on differing techniques with it ... it was responsible for at least half my fish on the weekend ... it will certainly be another option for me this year.
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Re: Trip to Lake Champlain

Post by TheMaverick »

Awesome thread, loving the pics!
If fishin ain't your mission, then you can kiss my Bass!
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