Champlain trip

Fished with my kid again this weekend. Out plan was to fish smallies in the
'big water' on whichever day the weatherman said would be calmer, and spend
the other day catching LM down around Ti. That was our PLAN. Here's now it
actually came down.

Saturday was hot, sunny, fairly low humidity and nearly dead calm. Drove to
Button Bay state park to launch with access to plenty of main lake smallie
spots. Surface temp was only 53 when I put the boat in the water. Ran to
the mouth of Arnold Bay, where the water temp is always a few degrees
higher, due to the water treatment plant. Found 57 degree surface water
there, and 54 degrees along the shallower main lake banks. Marginal for
what I was hoping to find. Experience tells me that the main lake smallies
in Champlain don't get into prespawn mode until the water where they've
been living is up into the upper 50s, which usually coincides with the
water on the shallow shelves getting up to 60 or so. Tried a few of my
best spots. Had one hellacious hit on a jerkbait that I somehow didn't hook
up with. After a while, there was this injured (scaled pretty good) smelt
about 5 inches long that seemed to be seeking cover near our boat. It
stayed right along side of us as we fished probably fifty yards of
shoreline shelf. Eventually a lake trout I'd guess to be in the mid-teens
took the smelt. I came to the conclusion that if the lakers were up on 8
foot deep harscrabble points, the smallies probably weren't there yet.

We decided to put the boat on the trailer and head back down to Ti. As I'm
standing there waiting for Tom to drive it onto the trailer, a smallie
about 5 pounds swims by in 2 feet of water. Maybe we should've been looking
in the back ends of shallow, sandy, featureless bays?

Anyway, back at Ti by 11:30AM, the water is exceptionally dirty and it's 72
degrees. The prespawn LM we were catching 2 weeks ago are gone. The
spawning creeks/bays are running super dingy, so I'm not about to try sight
fishing. We scrape and struggle to catch a couple 2 pound class bass. One
fluttering a chartreuse SW single across the nose of a small rocky point in
maybe 5 feet of water, the other on a wacky rigged spanky in a weed clump
in 14 feet of water. Plus the usual allotment of toothy things. Mostly
hammer handle northerns. Biggest maybe 4 pounds.

The next day is predicted to be light showers most of the day and gentle (5
to 8mph), south breezes, with a high in the low sixties.

Turns out to be mid-70s, and both the showers and breezes were much less
sever than predicted. I never blew more than a mile or two an hour and
never rained for more than 5 minutes at a time. Even then, it was pretty
light. Had the rain gear bottoms on all day, just put the tops on when it
would shower. But when we left, we drove about 30 miles south and the temp
plummeted and wind came up. Turns out it was like that all day everywhere
except where we were.

And where we were more than made up for the poor day on Saturday. Tom & I
each caught 1 dozen LM. All over 2 pounds, many over 3, and the biggest a
shade under 5. All but the biggest and the two smallest on big, nasty
looking spinnerbaits (7/8 and one ouncers, mostly with huge, tandem
chartreuse willows). The biggest LM came on a green pumpkin Ozmo rigged on
a heavy DS rig and pitched into a patch of heavy cabbage. There was this
one patch of cabbage surrounded by reeds on one side and really scummy
milfoil on the other, and we caught a couple fish every time we went by it.
Tom decided the mother lode must be in that cabbage patch, so he grabbed
the creature bait and pitched it in there. shakes it twice and sets the
hook into the big fish. Never had another hit on that bait or from that
cabbage patch again, all day long. but the spinnrbaits kept working, so we
had fun aplenty. Photos at...

http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/60604-1.jpg
http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/60604-2.jpg
http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/60604-3.jpg
http://www.richz.com/fishing/images/60604-4.jpg

Naturally we caught a mess of pike and a few pickerel as well. Biggest
northern was only about 7 pounds.

RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing