After doing some house hold chores that had been building up since the end of ice season I pulled my boat up to Lake Champlain on Saturday morning. Weather at departure was overcast skies and temps in the low 40’s. The plan was to be meeting up with some of the boys from VT Sportsman and see if we could put some crappie in the boat. Arrived at the launch at 9 and managed to get the boat in and only get a little bit of water in my boots. I arrived at my spot to find only one other boat there and one person fishing from shore, luckily I was good friends with the shore fishermen and knew who the boys in the boat were. I pulled in, dropped my anchor and made a cast, nothing. The boys in the boat were pulling fish left and right so I did my best to re-position ethically to a spot where I could reach the fish. The fish were on fire for the first hour, however the bait that they really wanted was a Bobby Garland baby shad in Black Bubblegum.
The fish were schooled up pretty hard and with the right cast you would get bit every cast. Most crappies in the morning were all worthy of the cooler and I did see many nice fish (12″) being caught.
As the day went on we were joined by many more people who knew that the bites was on. The overcast day turned into a blue bird day. I don’t mind other people fishing around me, but I was constantly being blocked off with my casts by another fishermen. Not very ethical in my mind. So me being who I am decided that I would leave fish to get away from the crowd, not a great idea. I fished nearby in some areas that had the same structure as the one where we were getting fish but only found small perch. So, I made my way back and set up in a different spot. By this time the bite was slowing considerably and the fish were spread out making things much more difficult. The water temp was only 45 degrees, I think these fish were here because the bait was there. I did however check on my Navionics app and noticed that this part of the way was actually an inside turn, and the exact spot that the fish were in was the turn itself.
The crappies stopped biting and the bluegill came in, which is probably the reason why the crappies vacated the area. I switched up my baits to a small Mister Twister Tail in a motor oil color and managed to boat some really nice bluegill and pumpkinseed. Ended the day with a dozen crappies and 24 nice bluegill and pumpkinseed. Wish I would have been there at daylight!
D & B Ice Adventures 