Some Recent Fishing

Today was spent lolling on a placid Lake Champlain with the family. The water temp is up at least five degrees and that has brought the fish to the beds. A Chigger Craw on a shaky head proved very productive as did a jerkbait in the same general areas.

Friday I had a guide trip on St. Catherine, like usual the fishing was stellar and we caught a bunch of smallmouth off beds. I went back out after the trip and caught about 19 pounds of largemouth off beds as well. Even though the fishing is great now on St. Cath. I'm excited for the post-spawn cranking to start.

Sunday I have a tournament in Massachusetts with dad and a friend, we are better than our competitors so we should be able to win. But, you never know.

I'll get some more pictures and video up an a bit. Please excuse any phone induced typos.

Pre-Spawn on Champlain

I ran up to Champlain for two half days of smallmouth action. The bass are up shallow and eating and getting ready to spawn. Which pretty much means I'll throw a crankbait and throw a crankbait and throw a crankbait some more. 

I made a pretty sweet video of some of the first day and it's right underneath this sentence.

The next day I got a bagel and some WiFi to start the day and then ran out and caught smallmouth after smallmouth and then a lake trout! Oddly enough, I caught much better size the second day- an easy 20-pounds. Tech talk after the pics!

Egg, cheese, everything. 

First fish of the day.

Seeing way more perch lately. I predict a lot more 5+ smallies in the next few years. 

Champlain was bouncing.

6-9

So, about that cranking. When the smallmouth start to move up toward and on to the flats in the spring they become very vulnerable to a crankbait. It's a great way to cover water quickly, it doesn't hang up much, and you can fish it in the wind easily (always a concern on Champlain). 

I tend to choose my bait based on diving depth, color, and castability. Because the water I'm fishing is mostly between 3 and 6 feet you can throw a pretty shallow running bait with no problems- that said, I'll often go to a medium runner for a little better casting and more consistent bottom contact. Besides that, you have to have the right color- chartreuse/blue back, craw, and maybe a shiner color are really all you need, the fish will tell you what to throw in short order.  

As far as the rod and reel goes you don't need anything special- something you can cast a long way and drive the hook home. That means either a long rod or braid to mitigate stretch when you need to put the hook into a fish at the end of a cast (because smallmouth have tough faces and mouths). I crank with 10# fluoro but you could definitely go heavier or to braid with a fluoro leader. You definitely don't want to go lighter than 10# because you'll break off a lot of baits because of the zebra mussels. 

After you get all your tackle together you get out on the flats and points near them and cast and cast and cast and crank and crank and crank. Let the fish tell you how fast they want it (I've had straight-up burning days and sloooooow crawl days and stop-and-go days). Trust me, you'll have fun.