Between the Bass Open that ended Saturday and the FLW a week earlier, an awful lot bass had been relocated to the northern end of Champlain recently. How was the fishing likely to hold up in the lower end? How long can the VT and NY Fisheries managers keep allowing the size selective relocation of LMB to the north end of the lake before it starts to affect the quality of the fishery south of Crown Point? A pro who catches 20 is only taking 5 up to Plattsburg, but they are his biggest 5. He’s doing it again tomorrow too, and so are 80 or 90 of his buddies.
On Saturday, I’ve got to admit, it seemed to me that the lower end was just about devoid of what I think of as ‘typical Champlain quality largemouth bass’. Starting in South Bay and working up almost as far as Benson Landing, Tom & I caught over 60 bass on Saturday, but none was over 3.5#. Heck, only a couple even flirted with the 3# mark. Caught them all on our usual weapons — Ozmos and drop shot rigs. Caught a few on jigs, too, and I had a grand total of one on a spinnerbait. Our only horizontal presentation bass of the day.
It’s not that the fishing was bad. On the contrary, the action was pretty steady, and mid-afternoon, we found a really solid bunch of fish, and took about 15 off one little 100 foot long stretch of shoreline drop off. But the lack of quality fish seemed palpable.
As an interesting aside, when we launched at about 7AM in South Bay, BASS pro J Todd Tucker was in there flipping one small area of chestnut. The same stretch of ‘nut I would have started on had he not been there. But South Bay is about a 110+ mile boat ride from Plattsburg. You can’t get much farther from the tourney take-off site and still be on Champlain! Saturday was the last day of the tourney, and that meant that Tucker had ‘made the cut’ fishing the nut. But the round trip suggests about 700 miles of boat riding over 3 days. Even if the lake was flat and calm all 3 days and his boat does an honest 75, with slow-down zones etc., that would be at least 10 hours of his 27 hour on the water traveling back & forth. I like to fish way too much to do that kind of stuff any more!
Anyway, Saturday ended with good numbers for Tom and me, but the lack of quality left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Sunday tasted a whole lot better! We started in Ti and had 3 real good fish in the first 20 minutes or so. Here’s a couple of them.
With only the morning to fish, and with nothing to show for the next couple spots we hit in the Ti area, we decided that running down to the same stuff we fished on Saturday offered the best option for a decent catch to add to the quality fish we’d started off with. So we ran down and fished mostly the same spots, and with mostly the same baits as the day before. Except on Sunday, half our fish were in the quality range that we couldn’t get a sniff from the day before. So I guess there’s still enough quality fish down south to make it interesting. Why they wouldn’t bite for us on Saturday shall remain a mystery. Such is fishing.
That explains why I didn’t do squat on Tuesday. Also explains why so many guys were flipping the nut, I couldn’t find a place to squeeze in anywhere….on a Tuesday no less! No more peace and quiet during the week anymore! And now I’m going to scold you for pointing out to every tournament angler about all the beauties you caught on Sunday on my part of the lake. They trash your honey holes around Ti now your sending them down my way to trash the only place I can catch fish anymore. Next Stratos that cuts you off will be dark blue and the guy at the front of the boat will be slinging crankbaits across those girly rods you insist on fishing with. Double Harrumph!! Very nice fish by the way….. glad someone can catch them!
Last few years, we spend as much time between Benson and the locks as we do around Ti. I just can’t figure out where/how you get ‘em on cranks, buzzbaits and frogs. We got two bass on horizontal presentations all weekend.