Lake Champlain

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.

Went out musky fishing for the third time this year, and you guessed it, no musky. I did however land this very nice pike, my guess is about 32", on a mepps marabu musky killer. I thought i had finally done it until i got her in the net. I caught her about 5 casts into the day, and she was the only action over 6 hours. Towards the end of the day, I saw a very large musky over 40" breach the surface for a split second, and although I casted by it, I didnt see it again. Might try here a fourth time on Sunday, although there was a ridiculous amount of people out on the lake fishing today, so I don't even want to think about what Sunday would look like.

Had some fun with the fly rod today and landed a new species (on fly)! Got two little Atlantic Salmon, a Brown Trout, and tons of Fallfish on my 3 weight. I also managed to hook into a really nice salmon, but he unfortunately came off after a short battle.