Great Chazy River

Today was a tough day of fishing. I visited 5 spots and caught 5 separate species. The goal of today was to catch a new species, although that did not happen today. The first two spots I visited were a bust. The first one on the lake had to low of a water level. The second spot looked juicy, but there were a lot of boaters coming in and out from the ramp, and there were also a couple of other people fishing and not catching. The third spot was definitely the best of the day at the Chazy. Starting of, I was going to try for musky, but most of the pools at the park looked like they wouldn't hold any large fish. Off the bridge, I spotted a 4lb smallmouth, and I was very close to getting him. Unfortunately, I tried to hookset before he had the sleeper gill in his mouth, and the fish darted off. 2 pools down is where I caught my 3lb largemouth on the sleeper gill. Sadly, I left my phone in the car, and since it was hot, I decided it would be best if I released the fish without a picture. In the last hole, I saw a couple of redhorse, and wanted to get my fly rod out, but there was really no room to cast from the bank. I ended off spotting a monster 5-6lb largemouth and messed up my presentation. I got two casts where he seemed very interested in my sleeper gill, but I just moved on. When I reeled my bait in, I realized that the tail of the swimbait was through the hook. Not fixing my presentation before I cast probably cost me a pb. The fourth spot I visited was choked in duckweed. The frog was the only option, but there were no bowfin or bass to be seen. I did however see something reddish brown swimming around down there, and I thought it could have been a tench. I got my flyrod out, and unfortunately, they were just bluegill. There were also some red eared sliders messing around with each other too, so I moved on and hit my last spot. I tried wading out to the dam in the fifth spot when I saw a rather large redhorse again above the riffles where I was wading. I decided that I was going to put my bass and musky poles away and try to catch a redhorse. I got my fly rod out and started making my way back to the spot, but the fish had moved. It was probably in the same hole, but it was starting to get dark, so I couldn't see through the water clearly enough. This is where I caught a rock bass, a smally, and a fallfish. I actually had a smallmouth take my bright pink indicator, which I thought was funny. I fished until dark when i called it a day. I had 4 new species allude me and missed what could've been a pb bass. Hopefully, I'll be able to squeeze in a quick session after class this week, probably going for some trout or those redhorse.

Today I tried following in the steps of one of the all time greats to catch a river monster. Went to the dam where Jeremy Wade once was(and Ethan Roberts ). He went into that concrete box to catch a lamprey in the episode, Vampires of the Deep. I had a different goal, and that was to catch a musky. Got on the road by 5 am and was on the river for 9 hours. The river is at the lowest its been in a year, which meant there were about 4 holes that probably held fish. I know the one definitely did because I saw a 40" fish chase something into less than a foot of water. While fishing the same holes, I was able to spot the fish, and put a glide bait and spinner bait in front of his face, but he turned away both times. The fish definitely wanted a more finesse presentation today. I started out with a spinner and was having some success in the rifflea, but when I was fishing the pools, there was no action. It was only later in the day that I started using my megabass sleeper gill and the epf grub. The sleeper gill was working pretty good, but the only color I had was a neon blue and orange pumpkinseed, in a river with very few sunfish. I missed a hookset on a 2.5lb fish, which was probably the biggest bass that was outside of the very large pools. I also tied on the EPF minnow, which is a fantastic finesse bait, exactly what the bass wanted. It was very hard to cast with my 20lb braid, but towards the end, I was catching fish every cast. The musky bite didn't happen today, but i will definitely be back, probably with some finesse and more realistic looking baits.

Nice musky

Great day for some top water Muskie fishing 😎

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve had a decent catch out of the river. This old girl definitely makes up for lost time. I’ve hooked up to around 6 this year and this is the 3rd I’ve got to shore. Beautiful fish 😎

Hard to believe such beautiful fish are sitting in shin high water, love me some puddle jumping 😎

It’s been two weeks of non stop football action on the river! Something about fighting bass in the current makes a great 😎

Don’t let the rain keep you inside 😎