Lake Champlain

It was a brisk 24 degrees this morning on the lake and the 20mph winds didn’t help to keep me warm. Once again I was faced with an east wind which is by far the most difficult wind to fish for these lakers in. I knew the bite was going to be hard, but what I didn’t expect was to run into a new species, my first ever Lake Whitefish. Two of them in fact! The only lake trout of the day bit my swimbait the cast before I landed my first whitefish. Along with the tough conditions, it snowed all morning and the jetty was quite icy. I think I may have overreached with my goal of 100 lake trout, and missing a week of prime fishing didn’t help. Thankfully, I should have a few more days of laker fishing as long as I can stick out the weather.

Nice laker off the jetty

New PB! I’ve heard rumors of some 35”+ lake trout caught from shore here and never thought I’d run into one, especially in the day time. Today was a considerably slow day as I only managed to get 2 bites in about 3 hours of fishing. The first bite came at about 8 o clock and was a gorgeous, sizeable, lake trout. The wind was blowing from the east today which made for some very difficult fishing. An east wind is the only direction that will push fish away from this jetty so there weren’t as many trout stacked up in the rocks as there usually are. However, there was a giant lurking. About half an hour after landing the first fish, I hooked into a big lake trout. After a nice battle and an impressive net job from Taylor Craft, I landed my new personal best laker coming in at 12lbs 9oz and 36 inches long!

Finding the fish this morning was tough, but I eventually managed to land this fatty on the swimbait. The ice was brutal today and I was forced to suck on my eyelets to melt them almost every cast. Towards the end of the morning I hooked one more laker but after some vicious head shakes, he spit the hook. Only one fish added to my total lake trout count doesn’t help build confidence towards my 100 fish goal. Hopefully soon, I can have a day of 20+ fish like I did last year!

Another cold morning on the lake today with ice forming on my eyelets for the first hour of fishing. The first fish of the day came on a double up with my friend on my 3/4 ounce spoon. Fished for about 3 hours in total today and by the end of the morning I had landed 8 lake trout, with all but one on the baby whale. Took a spill into the water while landing my last, and biggest, fish of the day. Thankfully the sun was out and I was able to warm up after a bit. After 8 lake trout sessions over the course of about a week and a half, I’ve landed 45 fish. My goal by the end of my fall semester is to get 100 trout to the net!

I think I have these lake trout dialed in. There are a few specific small holes that these fish stack up in on the end of the jetty and through trial and error and many lost lures I’ve found these holes. Today my friend and I arrived to the spot at 5:30am, and when we walked out to the jetty, there were two fly fisherman at the end. We couldn’t access our usual spot because we had flies whipping past our faces, so we decided to hang back and fish the weedy areas of the jetty. After about an hour of fishing in the shallower section, I finally managed to hook a nice lake trout on the spoon. This fish immediately ran towards the end of the jetty and close to the fly fisherman. On one of their back casts, they hooked my line with the fish attached and nearly ripped my rod into the water. I thought I had lost the fish but thankfully it stayed pinned and I landed it. After about 2 hours since arrival the fly fisherman decided to leave, and I made my way to my favorite hole. In 7 casts, I pulled out 4 fish. And to end the morning, just an hour after hooking the second fish of the day, I landed 3 more bringing my total to 8 for the day. These fish pictures are getting repetitive, as the first picture in this post looks nearly identical to the picture I took yesterday morning 😂.

The lake trout bite is not slowing down any time soon. Caught 6 of these beauties today in about 4 hours. The first hour and a half yielded no fish on the swimbait, but as soon as I switched to a spoon I caught fish on my first and second cast. The second one was the biggest of the day at 30.5 inches. Another hour and a half passed with zero bites on a variety of lures, so I decided to downsize my line from 14lb to 6lb. This proved to be an incredible decision because I immediately caught 3 fish in a row. After a few more missed hooksets, I managed to haul in one more laker before it was time to leave. My friend also had a weird catch at 5 in the morning; a lamprey that ate his swimbait?!

One of the calmest mornings I’ve ever seen on Lake Champlain! Virtually no wind and the lake trout were biting! Fished for about 3 hours and got 6 gorgeous lakers on the swimbait. The biggest of the day came in at 31 inches, my biggest so far this fall.