Nice hat Rich!

WW

--
http://www.warrenwolk.com/
http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com
2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions



"RichZ" wrote in message
...
Charles wrote:
Musta just been a bad weekend.... Anyone else have any luck?


Sure, all you gotta do is fish Champlain instead of places that wish they
had a fish population like Champlain does.G

We arrived at Sportsmans Cottages by the Crown Point Bridge on Friday
night
shortly after the rain (4" on Friday) stopped up there. 6AM on Saturday,
Tom & I were ready to go do some serious nut flipping in South Bay. The
riverine southern end of Champlain looked like coffee with cream. South
Bay
though, was its usual, dingy green self, except close to the outlet into
the river/lake. The surface temp in the bay was 76, and there was a
moderately stiff breeze out of the east-north-east. Fishing started of
like
gangbusters, and we got 7 fish like these in the first hour and lost
almost
that many more.

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/nut_1_tom.jpg

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/rich_nut_1.jpg

The hot deal was pitching Texas rigged Ozmo onto the chestnut and dragging
it along until either it found a hole or a fish made a hole trying to get
at it, then dropping it into the hole. I think we only caught one fish
actually flipping to existing holes. Seemed like we had to make a little
commotion on top to draw their attention first. The fish were all pretty
much carbon copies of each other, in the 3 to 3-1/4 pound range.

It really seemed like it was going to be a killer day in the nut. But it
was not to be. The wind kept shifting ever more northerly and getting
stronger and stronger. The wind and mud kept us confined to south bay, as
the river was ridiculously muddy from the rain the day before. On
Champlain
a north wind backs the water up in the canal and pushes water into south
bay, so that too was becoming muddier by the hour. And the fishing
tougher.

With only 3 more fish after that first hour and conditions becoming more
and more difficult to deal with, we decided to pack it in at about 1. We
put the boat on the trailer and headed up 22 to the crown point bridge. As
we were crossing the bridge, we noted that the wind direction left some of
our favorite spots just south of the bridge protected, so we put the boat
in the water and gave it a shot. We caught a half-dozen
pound-and-a-quarter
bass for our efforts, plus the highlight of the day -- at least until we
got a look at it...

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/beat_this.jpg

I gave Tom a hard time, because he had switched from the Ozmo we'd been
catching all our fish on, to one of his old standby Green Pumpkin/Green
flake Baby Brush Hogs when the fishing got tough, and THIS was the result?
All of the bass (and the drum, for what it's worth) came from 8 to 10 feet
of water in a sparsely vegetated band between a heavy milfoil bed and some
deeper growing cabbage.

On Sunday morning, the plan was to launch at the bridge if the water was
flat, and give an old favorite spot that I hadn't visited in several years
a quick shot, then pull the boat out and head down to Larabee's Point
(across from Ticonderoga) and put it back in to fish some of the prime
milfoil beds down there. When you're running a 14-1/2 footer with a 20,
you
don't make that run on the water. Sometimes I miss having a 20 foot bass
boat with a 200. Then I stop at the gas pump and get away with a $5 bill
after a weekend on Champlain and the fond longing goes away fast!

Sunday started off according to plan. Nice, clear water north of the
bridge, and a surface temp of only 64 degrees. That's really low for late
July, and it was pretty apparent that a lot of cold water from the "big"
section up above had been blown south over the previous 2 days. I don't
mind the cooling water, and I do love the morning twilight period. My 2nd
cast with the T-rigged Ozmo earned me this one.

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/...orning_pig.jpg

Sorry about the flash washout on the bass's belly. I was more concerned
with making another cast than in trying to get a perfect photo. The next
hour produced another 5 fish -- 4 in the 3 pound range and one little rat.
The wind was still laying flat. We knew what we were dealing with in this
stretch of water, and we had no idea whether or not the mud had worked its
way north as far as Ti when the wing layed down. So much for plan A. We
decided to stay in the general area of the bridge. We checked another
couple normally productive spots within 5 miles or so of the bridge and
got
nothing till we hit the same spot we'd fished the night before. Then for
more than a half-hour, we caught bass almost non-stop. Tom was throwing a
Texas Rigged green pumpkin creature bait (There's that Ozmo again), and I
was drop shotting a 4.75" Green Weenie Rascal Worm. The fish were deeper
than we'd found them the day before -- 12 to 14 feet, on the outside of
the
cabbage (pondweed) and they weren't especially large. Mostly in the 1-1/2
to 2 pound range, with a couple that might've gone an ounce or two more.
But it was almost a fish on every cast, and we weren't about to move until
they turned off. And eventually, they did just that. It went from one
fish
after another to a 15 minutes without a bite, just like someone threw a
switch. Then I finally got a hit and caught a northern pike about 5 pounds
(on the drop shot rig with 4 pound line, it was a blast and a half). We
worked all around the point, from deep to shallow and back again, and
never
made contact with the bass again.

We hit another three or four spots very quickly, then went back north of
the bridge to the long point we'd started on in the morning. We spent the
rest of the day there, and it seemed like every half-hour or so, we'd get
three or four fish in five minutes, then go another half hour or
forty-five
minutes before we hit another little flurry. We weren't moving, so it
seemed like the fish must be. All of Tom's afternoon fish came on T-rigged
creatures (both the Ozmo and the baby brush hog) and all of mine came on
the drop shot rig. This one was pretty typical of the fish we were getting
on and off all afternoon.

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/drop_shot1.jpg


RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing