A Week Fishing On Lake Champlain
by Ray Merckx – Published Print Edition Sentinel of GC Week of 5/28/2020
Every now and then, certain opportunities arrive that you just can’t turn down. Two weeks ago, I was asked if I was able to go fishing for a week on Lake Champlain. While I was fishing at the Cooper River dam I received a message on my phone saying, “Got an open seat all next week at Champlain.” That message was from Jim Miller, a great angler from Blackwood, NJ, who I fished with a couple of times this past winter and summer. Wow, an open seat for Lake Champlain? Is this for real? It has been a dream of mine to fish this place.
After getting all the information and finding out that the trip was happening on Saturday, May 16th, I had to make a quick decision. My main job is still closed due to the pandemic, so I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity as I may not have the free time available again. This type of opportunity happens maybe once or twice in a lifetime. My lovely wife knows that fishing this lake has always been a dream of mine and she wanted me to take advantage of this opportunity. So at 4 am last Saturday morning I started the six hour road trip with just the guys.
Once we loaded up the truck and boat with all our gear, we met up with another group of guys in Cinnaminson to start our Caravan north. We met up with Justin Sozio, Bert DeWitt, Bill Carione and Rashawn Lewis. The other two members of our team, John Valdez and Sean Fadigan already headed up to Chazy, New York earlier. All of these men I have had the pleasure to fish with or compete against in some of the local open buddy tournaments.
With a couple of stops and a tire blow out to fix on Bill’s trailer, we made it to our destination which was a house right on the water. We unloaded our bags and fishing gear, found our rooms and hit the water by 1pm. Jim and I got a little insight as far as where to head to fish on a section of the lake. We launched from Point Au Rouche State Park, NY but had to fish the Vermont side of the lake as bass fishing is closed on the New York side. Once we launched Jim’s boat and got out past the islands, the full size of this massive freshwater lake really was a shock to us. In fact it was a little intimidating as this is definitely the biggest lake many anglers will ever fish.
The first place we headed to was a place called The Gut on the Vermont side by Grand Isle. This spot had it all! Many of our guys were in there already catching small and largemouth bass as well as a few northern pike and landlocked salmon. Jim and I were able to grab a couple of decent sized small and largemouth in the 2 to 3 pound range before heading to different spots. We were able to catch a couple more smallmouth before sunset. We headed back for dinner and discussed what other spots we want to try for the rest of the week.
The first couple of days fishing was a little tough, but we managed to catch a few here and there with the majority of the smallmouth weighing a couple of pounds. We would hit the popular spots like Woods Island, Papa Squatch Island or City Ledge and would get a couple here or there. By Wednesday, Jim and I had a great day catching many quality smallmouth in the 3 to 4 pound range and got over 10 in the boat. The next day was our best as we probably caught close to 30 small and largemouth bass ranging from 1 to 3 pounds and I was able to catch a good sized Northern Pike. Some of the guys were catching close to 40 to 50 smallmouth that day saying that it was the best fishing they have ever had on the lake.
Our final day was definitely our best day all around. We were able to find the smallmouth in great sizes and numbers. I caught my personal best smallmouth bass ever at 4.65 pounds on a jerkbait by Woods Island. Plus, I also managed to catch my first ever lake trout weighing well over 7 pounds. Justin and Bert also had their best day catching over 100 smallmouth with Justin catching a 5.1 smallmouth bass. Bill also caught one that size earlier in the week; which some locals say that is very rare to catch in the 5 pound range. It was pretty good for us South Jersey boys who took on Lake Champlain in the middle of May.
Like all good things our fishing trip had come to an end. While we missed our families, we knew when we woke up in our bed back in our home on Sunday morning, we would be disappointed that we couldn’t fish Lake Champlain as we had done all week. This was an Anglers paradise for those who want to catch smallmouth and largemouth bass. While you will need some good navigational equipment to guide you around some of the big boulders, a trip to this lake is one to put on your bucket list. So if you get the chance then make it happen. You definitely won’t have any regrets. The north section of Lake Champlain has many wonders for any angler to explore and will give you great memories to last a lifetime. I cannot thank Jim, Justin, Sean, John, Bert, Bill and Rashawn enough for an awesome week of fishing together on Lake Champlain. Hopefully what I learned from this fishing trip will make you all proud in July when I get the opportunity to fish the south end at Ticondaroga NY for the NJ BASS Nation Tournament!
Picture left to right is Justin Sozio, John Valdez, Bill Carione, Rashwan Lewis in Front, Sean Fadigan, Raymond Merckx, Bert DeWitt and Jim Miller.