Lake Champlain 6/30-7/1

[Lard Almighty]

My dad, brother and I headed up to Lake Champlain for a weekend of bass and pike fishing. Different guide and different area than usual, so we weren't too sure what to expect. We launched from Plattsburgh both days. We wound up fishing during a big FLW tournament and saw a lot of pro boats parked at our hotel, as well as on the lake. (It's amazing who will sponsor a fisherman these days. Tell me, what does Hawaiian Punch have to do with bass fishing? )

Day one was high sun and wind, but it produced some solid action, though nothing spectacular. My brother was high hook on quantity and quality, landing two pike in the 30" range and a couple of decent largemouths up to about 3 pounds. He also caught the only smallmouth of the day. We all caught some decent fish, and my dad landed his PB pickerel. The best lures were tandem spinnerbaits and soft plastic flukes. I also dug a Johnson Silver Minnow out from the bottom of my tackle box, and that accounted for most of my fish for the day.

Day two was ideal conditions for most of the day; light wind and mostly cloudy. The fish, however, thought otherwise. To say fishing was slow would be an understatement. Our guide accounted for most of the fish boated, though my dad chimed in with a few decent pike. My brother and I couldn't buy a strike, landing two small pike and a few rock bass and white perch between us. Just a really tough day all around, which led to much grumbling on the 5.5 hour drive home.

Overall this fishing trip ranks near the bottom of trips I've taken in the last several years. The town of Plattsburgh is beat to hell, with the exception of the two downtown blocks that are kept pretty for the tourists. The food ranged from merely palatable to downright rancid; the best thing I ate all weekend was a pack of gummy worms from the convenience store next to the hotel. Speaking of the hotel, it looked like it had not been remodeled since the 1960s. There were cigarette burns in the comforters and the carpets, and my brother's room REEKED of cigar smoke. I shudder to think what I would have found had I taken a black light to the place. At least there were no roaches (that I saw).

Fishing was okay at best. Our guide was pretty experienced and he took us to likely spots, but the fish just weren't very cooperative. The section of the lake we concentrated on looked very fishy, with shallow weed beds and rock humps being our main targets. There were perch and rock bass everywhere, which struck at baits nearly as large as they were with reckless abandon. We saw some big bowfin cruising the shallows, some in the 7-8 pound range. There were also some huge freshwater drum around, but they wouldn't even look at our baits. We fished from a Polar Craft center console boat which was pretty roomy, but still a bit cramped with 4 people aboard. We probably won't be doing our Champlain trip this way next year.

[AndyS]

A major assortment of fish !! It's fishing, not catching some times.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Any trip Upstate NY is a great trip in my eyes. Cant catch all the fish all the time!

[ChaosStarter]

Our trip to Champlain was tough ourselves, but we hit a bad cold front week during the middle of two warm weeks. We had to fight for our fish as well. We launched from the northern middle section north of Carry Bay. Our best day came during the afternoon during some random rain showers. We had probably 50-60 fish (this includes perch, rock bass, smallies and pikes). We only found largemouth in the shallow, weedy bays.

The main lake was around 60-65*, and certain dirtier bays hit 70* on the nicer days Overall, it was definately a tough time to fish, but we'll be back to figure the place out some more.

[bronzeback]

nice getaway bro

awesome pics!

[Lard Almighty]

Video is ready, guys! Links up top.

Also, an interesting note I forgot to mention, some of the pike we caught looked pretty sickly. There were some that had scars and bleeding sores on them. According to our guide, this is called esox carcinoma, which results in benign growths that eventually fall off and result in scarring. Some of the scars looked a lot like lamprey bites, which I mistook them for at first. As far as the guide knows, he does not believe this condition harms the fish a great deal. There were also a couple pike we caught that were covered in parasites; it looked like they were rolled in coffee grounds! Again, the guide stated that these parasites do not cause any great damage to the fish.

FYI, the winner of the FLW tournament that was going on was David Dudley with 78 lbs. 8 oz.

[NorthJerzyG]

Seems like a good trip despite the slow fishing. Nice job!!