10-6-12 – Why Hunt When You Can Fish!

While many outdoor recreation friendly Vermonters were taking to the woods for the opening day of archery deer season, we were loading up the row boat to go catch some crappie on the Connecticut River.

The fish we were chasing roam a deep river channel. The school of fish is large and we have found that the largest fish present lead the way for all. To locate the school, we usually begin by cruising around making long, fast casts with or without a bobber. The active fish usually are suspending 5-10 below the surface in 20+ feet of water. Once we start catching large crappie, we know we have hit it. To track the fish as they move around we have to determine if they are moving up or down the channel.      To stay on the school, it is only a matter of staying ahead of their movements. It would be possible if we were to keeping fish to catch a limit in one pass but we have been releasing all fish in order to maintain a healthy population.

The fish seemed much more spread out today than the previous week.  We actually found the largest concentration of fish in an unusual place for the Glory Hole.  Instead of being suspended over the deep water feeding on minnows they moved up on a  flat and seemed to be feeding on a hatch emerging from the soft bottom.  We boated at least a hundred fish in a matter of hours and decided that it was time to get home and get camo-ed up for the afternoon hunt.  Good day of fishing once again using the “Live” Baby Shad made by LFT Lures.

We put together two videos from our glory hole trip. Check out Ice Fishing Teaser and Opening Day Of Deer Season Crappie Fishing on our YouTube page!