Morning
Today was a two part day on Lake Champlain. I began the day in the islands ditch fishing for bullhead. The setup for this type of fishing is simple. I run a 1/2 -3/4 ounce bell sinker with two snelled hooks in line spaced out above the weight. The height of the hook depends on where the fish are running but a good place to start is with the first being tied in 6″ up and the second 6-10″. We used worms and Powerbait with success on both. In general, we caught more fish on the worms. My first cast with Powerbait on yielded a good crappie that measured in at 12.5″!
The bullhead shut off early in the day as the sun came up and only bit sporadically for the remainder of the morning. Comparing this year to last, the fish seemed to be in fewer numbers (could be timing of the run in regards to my trip) and larger in size.
We caught some huge sunnies and loads of perch. The numbers of perch were unreal! We were all pulling doubles throughout the day! Just being there for the sunrise made the trip with it.
Afternoon
For the afternoon part of the trip, I met up with bobby for a ride to southern Lake Champlain chasing crappies from a boat with Jamie. We left the launch around 2:30pm and headed to a spot that had been producing. We quickly got into the fish but found a lot of smaller sized between the keepers. We spent a few hours picking through the before it slowed down. During the excitement while in a run of big fish I stubbed my toe. The nail got jammed back and is completely black and blue now. I think it may have broke. Didn’t stop me from fishing the rest of the day though! This spot in particular is very tight as it is surrounded by low hanging trees and with just enough room for a boat to squeeze in. Because of the space limitations, we were using our ice rods by Austin Custom Rods for much of the time. It is a blast pulling in a slab that can run where ever it wants to!
On the way back to the launch, we decided that we should try another spot that had given up a few fish in a past year. It was a slow bite producing only pike, bass, and bluegill. The fish were exploding everywhere chasing bait. Even though we were all ready to go we motored a short distance to a third and final location. This spot had great results. For an hour, we pounded slammers. We were throwing back 11″ crappies because those were the “small” ones! We all ended up with some nice bags to take home for supper.
Some fish for the freezer.
