Plattsburgh, New York

Caught my second biggest smallmouth ever today! This gorgeous 4lb 8oz smallmouth bass ate my 8” glidebait, and so did about 15 other smallmouth. These fish were eating every single big bait I put in front of their faces. Smallmouth, however, were not my target for the day. I successfully managed to land another, more desirable species…

Hit the river after class today at 8 pm, but didn’t get my first fish of the day until midnight. Thankfully, the effort paid off as this gorgeous 7.6 lb walleye finally decided to eat my bait after 4 hours of repeated casting. In the hours prior, I managed only a few small bites but couldn’t keep anything hooked. I’m hoping the bite heats up a little bit, but the rapidly dropping water level is making the fishing tricky.

I unfortunately got skunked last night, so I had to get revenge at the river tonight. Very early into my session, I landed this gorgeous five-pound walleye! I fished for another three hours and only yielded one more bite. Prior to fishing for walleye, I put my waders on to retrieve a lure I had lost yesterday, which I managed to find very quickly. I was also able to snatch a new jerkbait, spinnerbait, little cleo, and a bicycle from the bottom of the river. Now I know what I kept getting snagged on!

Another absolute stud of a walleye tonight! The dream of a 10 pounder keeps me up every night and I won’t miss an evening on the river until it happens. Today’s catches weighed in at 8lbs and 2.5lbs, and I even brought the fly rod out for a bit to land some little Atlantics and fallfish.

New PB! Once again, I came so close to completing my goal of catching a 10 pounder with this new personal best Walleye. This behemoth of a fish weighed in at 9.1lbs! Tonight, I found myself fishing a wall that I knew would be hard to land a fish without a net. I ended up lying flat on my stomach numerous times to just barely grab this fish by the tail and bring it in. I even managed to land another stud that came in at 6lbs 4oz, yet the beast that bit before it put it to shame. I had lost my first two fish of the day on back to back casts, and the pouring rain, combined with temps that touched the high 30’s, didn’t help build my confidence. Thankfully, I stuck it out, and it all payed off.

This should have been my 10 pounder… Tonight was my most successful Walleye outing so far as I landed 3 of these studs. My biggest of the day was a stunning 8lbs 4oz and 29.5 inches long. However, this fish was completely spawned out and had released all of her eggs. After doing some research, a Walleye of this length will typically hold 2.5 to 3 pounds of eggs, which means just a few days ago, this fish likely weighed over 10lbs. On top of this absolute unit of a walleye (my second heaviest and longest ever), I landed a 5lb 8oz beauty and my smallest of the year so far.

Yet another stud Walleye tonight that made me wait until 11pm. Hit the water at 2pm today but didn’t catch my first fish until 11pm. I unfortunately lost my scale, which stuck with me since June of 2022 and weighed hundreds of fish and countless PB’s. Hopefully its successor, a Rapala scale that I biked 6 miles from the river today to purchase, won’t disappoint.

Battled 3 hours of rain in the pitch black for my biggest Walleye of the year so far! Weighing in 6lbs 11oz, this guy is my 4th biggest Walleye ever. On top of this stud, I got another one that came in around 5 pounds. Hopefully the drop in temperature for the next 5 days won’t push these fish out, because I can’t get enough of them!