It all started at a Cumberland Farms somewhere in Massachusetts, where we stopped to fill up on gas and grab a cup of coffee at 430 am. In walks a man who i SWEAR i have seen before in that gas station. He hobbles a bit, and might not be 100% upstairs, but he is always friendly. Sure enough, he walks right over to Joe, and mutters something unintelligibly along the lines of "Put it up brother, lemme get a fist pump!" raising his hand in the air for a knuckle bump. Joe smiles and says right on man, and knuckles up. I am always weary of strangers but this guy was cool
and does the same thing to me. 2 knuckle bumps later with a complete
stranger who was just feeling good, we hopped in the truck on our way,
and dubbed our new charismatic friend "Fist Pump Pauley". It completely
set the tone for the trip!!!We arrived on the lake around 830, and found some fish immediately throwing the following baits:
Not pictured is the 4 inch green Paul-e-Worm Shep Sr. hammers fish on, which we also used to land about 20 or so fish. Most of our fish on day one were landed on either Chatterbaits or spinnerbaits, but when the wind died mid day, so did the active bite, and we wormed fish through the lull. We found a few here and there, no real stacks of fish and nothing of any noteworthy size. Most of our bass were between 1-2 pounds, small to decent keepers, but not the Champlain chunks you drive up for, and our best bass of the day was a ho-hum 4 pound largemouth Joe got on a spinnerbait. We started driving north after fishing a variety of southern waters, and ran into Barn1, up for a few days to open the cabin and fish. He mentioned similar results to ours for the day, but also mentioned the bite further north was better for quality fish. We parted ways looking for a hot bit just a few miles north, and found the back 3 hours of the day to be an improvement overall.
Throughout the day, we saw a LOT of fish! Longnose Gar were surfacing throughout much of the lake, and a few schools of decent 10 pound class drum were spotted south of Ti Point. We also saw a handfull of 5-8 pound bowfin, but couldnt get a hook up going. Northern Pike were all but absent for this trip, probably recovering from thier recent spawn. The alewife kill mentioned on this and other sites wasnt happening, or was done in Ti, and we saw only a few north of the launch at all. The water levels were back to normal, and the temps were 58-66 depending on time of day. Water clarity always plays a factor up there, and we found fish in mostly clear water, but found our best fishing in slightly stained water. Slightly stained on Champlain would be a lot dirtier than anything CT has, but it was fishable murky; the BEST kind of clarity!
With 30+ bass in the boat, we finished up on a rock point that was pretty murky compared to the rest of the water we targeted and IMMEDIATELY hooked up on 3 pound fish. with about 1.5 hours left in the day, we decided to hammer this spot and the adjacent shoreline/pocket with different baits to see what was happening. The chatterbait led the pack, and with it we boated about 15 more keeper bass to 4 pounds, and another dozen short fish. Bass were stacking up well with the rising wind, and hiding right in the mudline. Slow rolling the baits with twitches drew strikes from fish that simply mush mouthed the bait, and as soon as you lost the weight of the lure, it was time to load up! About our 3rd pass, i had a great hit from a fish, reared back, and the rod simply STOPPED! The fish shook 2-3 times, and decided to take control, running slowly against my drag and 12 pound test over the back of the boat. I instantly knew this wasnt a bass, and with the amount of power being displayed i either had a record-class northern, or one of the dozens of other species of HUGE fish that swim in Champlain. The "slow" had me thinking carp, but the rolling hinted at a BIG channel cat... 35 minutes later of Joey driving the boat following the fish, playing hopscotch between decks, and about the best one-shot-or-its-over net job i've ever seen, and my partner in crime hoisted a Channel Matt worthy catfish over the rail. It will go down as the largest freshwater fish ive landed, and weighed in at 19 pounds, 14 ounces. I actually think Joe was more pumped than i was, and i cant thank you enough for that maneuver boatside when that beast dug down.
A shout out to "Fist Pump Pauley" and a knuckle bump later, we released the fish after a few photos, which swam off immediately. With only a little time left, Joe got on the horn and shot some of those photos to friends, but i picked the rod back up and turned the boat back on the point. I landed 5 quality 2-3 pound bass in 5 casts, missed 2 more, and landed another 3 fish on 10 casts. It was absurd! we finished the day with 59 keeper bass, 1 northern, 2 rock bass, 18 nice pickerel around 2-4 pounds each, and one monster catfish. we also had around 20 short largemouths that kept the rod bent throughout the day. A hundred fish on day one? OH YEAH!
This wasnt even the GOOD day....
O'
DAY 2:
Day one was good, but we noticed a pattern in the flurry of bass at the end of day one, and discussed our plan that night to focus on hard structure among the weeded areas. It would mean a run further north, but not up to the next launch, so sticking to Ti and exploring some back creeks and bays that were run dry last season was how we started. We found a bunch of small keepers here, and had a good time going up into some ponds and beaver dams, but aside from some huge bowfin sightings the fishing was less than steller. A lot of fun though taking the boat into places i think only some geese have been in. We bailed on the exploratory phase and headed out to our first spot along some rip rap.
HAMMER TIME! from the first few casts, we drifted with the wind along a rocky shoreline fishing 3-5 feet and worked up 20 good keeper bass and a half dozen shorts in 3 hours. our best fish was a solid 4, and our average size went from a pound and a half to close to 3. Joey had big fish on a black and blue chatterbait he switched to, a solid 4.4
Knowing we found the pattern that would provide more bites, we started hopping spot to spot, and along the way landed 2-3 fish here and thre, but stuck out on a few more spots than we would have liked. mid day found our average size still very good, with 3 fish over 4 in the boat, almost zero pickerel or panfish, and only a handful of short bass. I found a pod of fish on what i said was going to be my last cast in a small weedy bay, only to land this 4 lb 14 ounce largie, then 6 of her friends between Joe and I.
30 fish in at 2pm, we knew we were missing the x factor; on Champlain this is the difference between a 40 fish day and a hundred fish day
The "x" factor for us was USING the wind to our advantage. earlier on our first hot spot, the wind quartered the bank, sweeping water left to right across weeds and rocks, drawing whatever baitfish in towards gamefish. ya hear about it, but you dont SEE these situations in lakes in ct very often. Champlain is the place where everything you read about in books magazines and see on tv comes true; patterns exist, multiple patterns can target totally separate populations of fish. i found a rocky point, and within 3 casts slammed the hook home on another 3 pounder. Then another....then another... I had 3 fish over the rail before Joey and I hooked into this sweet double of a near 5 and 3... Joe saved his casts for the big one!
we landed one after another over the next 2 hours, all the while noticing a large increase in the Gar activity from yesterday, specifically right where we were fishing. At one point i accidently foul hooked one of those and the whole school spooked a bit, showing us how many of them were around. It got nuts at times with fish rolling all around the boat and we realized that the bass were simply mixed right in amongst this gar fest. It wasnt just bass though, as we found our only drum of the trip:
well, another couple of bass in, i switched to a cotton cordell super spot, and cleaned up on 2 pounders in short order, when i get a solid thump fishing inside the mudline. some thrashing on the surface, and after a quick fight, i landed my first Gar ever! VERY COOL!!!
just a small one compared to the ones that were swimming by, but awesome none the less! Joey was stoked, and rambling on and on about how it would make his trip to hook one... well, this fish went 43.5 inches on a keitech and wrapped the whole damn line around its snout in the process. Man ,it went nuts on the surface once hooked, shot straight up out of the water 3 feet! short fights and not a ton of power, but super cool!
landed another mid sized fish at the boat but shook it off on the rattletrap. some of the gar we saw would have been over 5 feet easily!
Ya think that would be enough, but the bass fishing just went crazy after that. Joe took a breather until i landed my 4th fish since he sat
and when i pulled this one out of the net, it weighed 6.1, my largest weighed bass in over 15 years!
at some point, i was alternating between a chatterbait and a super spot, and hooked into this toothy critter, one of only two we landed.
Shortly after, with the sun setting, we decided it would be a good time to hit the road. we were beat, but totally pumped. when all was said and done, we manage 3 pickerel, 1 pike, 4 gar, 1 drum, 20 short bass, and a spectacular 82 keeper largemouths. our best 5 would have gone 23.85, (joe dropped another 5+ that would have given us 25! we didnt even care!)
i have landed more bass, i have landed a better 5 fish bag. but this was a trip to rival anything Erie or Maine has offered. Joe, i could not have fished like that with anyone else, and i know another day would have been entirely possible of flat out ridiculous fishing around the clock if only work didnt interfere...
thanks for clearing your schedule and running on coffee and buffalo chix wraps for 2 days! WORTH IT?
O'
