Lake Champlain with Drew Price

 It had been a long time since I'd last fished Lake Champlain when I went up to buy Drew Price's canoe. Noah and I made multiple trips some years back, finding success on our own. It was Drew's blog that had originally got me interested in Champlain and it's abundance of native, bowfin, gar, freshwater drum, as well as multiple introduced species that we'd not caught. The opportunity to fish the lake with the guy that really sparked my interest in it was something I was very excited for. 

Early the morning after my arrival, Drew thought we'd have a decent shot at lake trout. This was certainly something I was excited for, as it was a species I'd not yet had good opportunities to target. Drew warned me that it wouldn't likely be great fishing, but I didn't particularly mind. The idea of targeting lakers with fly tackle in deeper water and at a time when most anglers would troll or jig instead appealed to me. We went out to explore the possibilities on a couple humps Drew had been catching on in the weeks before. We fished heavy sinking lines and big heavy flies, plumbing the depths and hoping for a hard strike. Unfortunately it never came, though I did have a smallish lake follow the fly almost to the surface, something Drew had mentioned was possible. 

After a little while and no success, it was time to switch gears and re-launch further north. The rest of the day was to be devoted to a different game in the shallows. Lake Champlain is an incredible place to sight fish, with expansive weed flats and generally clear water occupied by such a broad variety of species it will make your head spin. After just a short run from the launch, we were in a spot Drew new held a large variety of fish. In no time at all we were looking at pumpkinseeds, bluegills, yellow perch, white perch, common carp, tench, rudd, bowfin, brown bullheads, and largemouth bass. Just  short ways down the sam shoreline we began to see pike, chain pickerel, and longnose gar. At one point we saw a giant channel catfish. If variety is the spice of life this place is heaven on earth for the freshwater angler. 

The first trophy of the day was a giant pumpkinseed. I'm a big fan of these extravagantly colored native sunfish. They were being fairly picky and particularly prone to spooking, something I'm not at all used to from this species. It actually took a while to get one, but when we did it was my personal best.

Even more abundant than large pumpkinseeds were the brown bullheads. I've never seen so many bullheads. They were everywhere, poking their heads out of nests they'd dug in the mud bottom. At times as many as six or seven of them were visible at once. One of the nice things about bullheads: generally, if you get a fly in front of their face, they are going to take it. They were much easier than the pumpkinseeds. They were easy enough that I caught more than one of them blind casting. That has certainly happened to me before, I've caught many bulheads on the fly over the years, probably more than most fly anglers could expect. But I'm not sure I've ever caught more than one blind casting in a day, and I got three this time on top of the small bunch I sight cast to. 

The highlight of the trip was a 25 minute time window in which we put some serious trophies on the boat, all on a Gamechanger Craw. Initially for that window, I was on the poling platform. We were looking for the giant channel catfish we'd seen earlier in the day, but not finding it. I spotted a good sized largemouth though, and Drew was able to drop the fly on it and it smoked it. It was an incredibly stout fish.

Seemingly just moments after releasing that fish we spotted a big bowfin. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to watch the bowfin master do what he does oh so well. I somehow managed to pole well and got the boat in a good position, and the fish followed the script. The eat was spectacular. The fight was spectacular. The fish was spectacular. 

Then I was up to bat, and we went to look for a huge bass we'd seen a bit before. When I laid eyes on her and saw that she was stationary and her body language was relaxed, I knew I had her. I sank the Changer Craw in front of her, letting it fall right to the bottom, then gave it one little move and she inhaled it. The fight was short, largemouth aren't exactly the strongest fish, but this was one of the largest black bass I'd caught in a long time. Ironically, after years of mostly catching largemouth incidentally rather than going out and targeting them, catching that fish has sparked a revival in my interest in the species and I've been specifically targeting them quite a bit lately. 

As the sun went down, we headed back toward the launch having put a ton a lot of fish in the boat and had just a fantastic time. I learned a lot from Drew, which I'd fully expected. It was great to finally get to fish with him, and I'm sure I will again before too long. 

If you're interested in experiencing what I did up there, that truly world class fishing, check out Drew's website and book a trip. There isn't a better guide up there. He's been in front of the curve the whole way. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, and Jake for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Champlain on the Fly Redux Day 2: Slamming Bass

Northern leopard frogs, Lithobates pipiens, are a very common sight around Champlain. They are common in a handful of places in Connecticut but I have never seen one at home. Often when someone sees what they think is a leopard frog in CT they are really looking at a pickerel frog. If you fish Champlain though, odds are you'll see a few of these along the way at a boat launch or campsite. Noah saw anglers catching them for pike bait on one of his trips up here. I could never do that, they're too adorable. But I will imitate them with flies. And on this day that would be very relevant. 

 For our second morning we drove north to fish the South Hero area. The are we had fished in June with a deep weed bed had turned into a shallow flat. It is easy to forget that this lake's height drops massively throughout the summer. But this drop actually put us at a sight fishing advantage, and there were bowfin, bass, and small esox all over this flat. What I didn't expect to see were tench, a species introduced from Europe. I really, really wish I had successfully hooked one. For a rough fish angler in the U.S., tench are kind of Holy Grail-ish. They are not common. The bowfin, atleast the ones that weren't completely buried in the weeds, were pushovers. I was able to find a few that were only partially buried, and each one took. I boated three of them, matching the previous day's bowfin success.

One thing I noted as I cruised over the flat and carefully observed the bottom and the fish was a couple of deep holes in which taller weeds were growing to the surface. Bass and a few bowfin were residing in these holes, and I was pretty sure I could get the largemouth very easily on a foam topwater fly called the Bass Plopper. The first pass at the first hole resulted in two solid bass on consecutive casts. Both just hammered the fly, absolutely slammed it, and fought like hell.

I gave it a 15 minute rest, came back, and kapow! Another good bass.

Another rest. I came back. Same fly, same hole. Another good fish.

We wandered off for a while, Noah caught a small pike and we both got a bunch of yellow perch. By that time we had pretty much used up our time in that area and decided to head out. On the way back through, same fly, same hole, another really nice bass.

We drove back south to an area we had never fished, The Narrows. The hope was to find a few gar so Noah could finally add that species to his list. They were around but they were catchable. Eventually, I decided to target bass. I had seen some frogs around when I "answered the call" before we launched there. Dragonflies were everywhere. And I saw more than one sizable largemouth blow up on baitfish right at the surface. So the choice was pretty clear. I tied on a weedless frog pattern, attached to a short 30lb leader and the 10wt. That may seem a little overkill for largemouth bass, but I've been trying to master catching big bass in the slop on the fly for years now, and using the 10wt has absolutely transformed my game. I can slam the hook home after I feel the fish and haul them right out of the think mats with little concern.

The bass were hungry and all worked up. Again and again they came out of the weeds to eat my fly as violently as any bass I've ever encountered. The fly I was using was tied on a weedless worm hook and mono extension, to ride point up, shield the bend of the hook to keep it from collecting weeds, and still have a great hooking percentage. It worked as well as I could have hoped. I hooked 3/4 of the bass that took.

There were pike and pickerel in there too, including some exceptionally large ones, but for some reason neither Noah nor I could keep one of them pinned until the very end, when I got a good pickerel in. I would have loved to add a big pike to the list of fish I caught on this trip but just the hits alone were worth it. Oh if only I had a camera rolling for every bite. None were boring.

I don't know how many bass I pulled out of the weeds on that day. At least a couple dozen. Some where of a pretty fair size. Nothing humongous. There was always a lot that attracted me to fishing weed mats for topwater bass. It was always about the unexpected. You never new when that ten pound hawg was going to blast through the pads for your frog. And unlocking the doors to exploring this world with a fly rod has become borderline obsession. I yearn to get the biggest bass out of the thickest crap on fly tackle. And Champlain seems to be a great place to do so. Though there are only a handful of new species I'd like to get in Champlain, I'll undoubtedly be back there again and again. It is an incredible and diverse fishery.

Champlain on the Fly Redux: Bowfin, Gar, and Drum

The last time I fished Lake Champlain left quite a bit to be desired. I got a bunch of pike and bass, that was fun. But leaving a body of water that had great numbers of a bunch of species I had never caught with just one new shiner species was a tiny bit painful. This time was going to be different This time was going to be the best warmwater fly fishing I'd ever had in the Northeast.

Noah and I left on Saturday morning and were at the South Bay boat launch before noon. South bay would provide us with our best opportunity to target longnose gar, a species I am particularly partial to gar because of their prehistoric nature and gorgeous coloration. They are a much maligned fish. There were times when there were moves to eliminate them completely from ecosystems. Even today people treat gar poorly. I have heard stories from Champlain of bass fisherman breaking their jaws off and releasing them alive. The mere thought makes me sick to my stomach.

We were presented pretty immediately with a problem: The lack of sun. With the sun out gar tend to lay up at the surface where they can be sight fished. Clouds makes this less likely, and even if they do lay up top they are harder to see. I started out fishing a gar fly anyway, though I didn't see any around. A fly for longnose gar typically incorporates some kind of long synthetic fibers. Gar have extremely bony mouthes, longnose gar even more so than the other species. It can be extremely difficult to hook them. But getting fibers tangled in their teeth increases the odds of bringing one to hand. The first taker on my "rope fly" was a largemouth bass, unsurprisingly pale in the chalky water.

Sliding into a cut in the water chestnut mats looking to see what there was, I saw the big head and elongate, undulating dorsal of a bowfin. Then another a bit further in. Without hesitation, I changed to a streamer I tied specifically for bowfin. Slow sinking, muted colors, with a very heavy very sharp hook: a tool of bowfin deception. Bowfin are an aggressive fish, but very often they appear not to want to move more than a couple inches for a fly. I got a bunch of shots at bowfin in that cut, many of them actually spooked, probably six of them took the fly. Hooking bowfin is basically a game of luck. You put the iron to them and hope the hook finds meat, not cartilage. After having two come off almost immediately, both big, I dropped my fly on one's nose, twitched it a little, and set hard when it ate. I've been using my ten weight a lot lately for warmwater fish, and I was very thankful for it on this trip. These bowfin fight hard and they were in very snaggy, weedy areas. I had to fight them hard, close, and fast and the ten was up to the task. I didn't loose one bowfin to the weeds.

I got two beauties before we gave that cut a rest. The first large and pale, the second smaller and colorful. I don't think I've caught a bowfin yet that wasn't a downright violent fighter. These suckers act a lot more angry when hooked than bass or pickerel. Since I almost always am in their eye-line when I get them to take, and I know they see me, I think they realize they shouldn't have eaten that enticing looking fly and it pisses them right off.

After a little while it was clear that despite there still being tons of bowfin there, they had grown  weary, so we gave them a rest and headed over to a bridge where we had seen someone catch a sizable crappie. Both of us had kind of forgotten that this part of the lake was a hot spot for white crappie, a species we both needed. It really didn't take long for Noah to catch a couple trophy sized fish. 

A little while later I caught a smaller one, finally adding Pomoxis annularis to my life list. It was not very big, but it was a white crappie. 

To sweeten things just a little bit more, a few drops later I came up with a small drum. Aplodinotus grunniens, freshwater drum. Life list #82. 

While we were under the bridge the sun came out for a bit and the wind died. And, like magic, the gar came out. Tons of them. Big gar, small gar, rolling gar, slapping gar, laid up gar... we drifted a deep flat with gar visible playing all over it. It took me a bit to find ones that I could effectively sight cast to (the gulpers went down too quick), but when I found a laid up of cruising fish, without fail it ate the fly. The rope flies worked. An SF blend bunker worked. I would have liked to have caught a few more of the takers I had, and I'm going to be experimenting with more materials for gar flies in the future. But my first three beautiful longnose gar made the afternoon one I won't soon forget.

Unfortunately, though Noah was actually getting more takes than me he couldn't catch one. While he kept at it I sneaked off to check on the bowfin again. I was quickly rewarded when I spotted a very large one. I dropped my fly in front of it. That fish took some effort. It was not sure it should eat. But I am very convincing, and I ended up bent double on my biggest bowfin after a solid minute of teasing it. I landed it, but I'm not sure who beat up who. I felt like I got my ass kicked even after I let that fish gently swim off.  

So, I ended day one with my biggest bowfin. What a brute to end an awesome day. Three bowfin, three gar, a couple bass, a white crappie, a freshwater drum.

The next day was going to be a little bit different, but no less productive. So stay tuned.