I fished with Mario, Joe & Tony on Lake St-Francis today. The winds were out of the N/NE at 10 to 20 knots with three-foot waves greeting us on our initial run. The air temps were not quite 50 degrees and there was a light mist in the air. Water temps were in the lower 60’s and the fish were very inactive. A spinnerbait bite was the best choice as covering water was a must. No concentrations of fish were found with one fish here & there. By days end about 15 smallmouth bass were caught with a bonus largemouth of 3.5 pounds as well. A couple of the smallies went over 5 pounds but most were in the 3 to 3.5 pound range. Mario actually caught the biggest but Joe lost one possibly larger right at the boat. There were actually more fish lost than landed as many a fish strike came up empty or lost shortly after the hook set. Fortunately these were all quality smallmouth and some of the largest caught by today’s gang. All in all, a pretty good day considering this kind of weather. I will be glad when the winds finally change direction!

I fished Lake Champlain with Darren today and definitely got into the numbers! After postponing yesterday due to five footers, we were able to get out today. The water had turned to a terrible brown from the 30-knot winds yesterday and visibility was less than 6 inches. The fish were hitting a little short in the morning and we had to slowly crawl tubes in order to land just a handful of bass. Even the pike weren’t cooperative for us as we tried slow rolling spinnerbaits for quite some time without success! The air temps were a cool 55 degrees but eventually went into the upper 70’s by the days end. Water temps were a cool 60 degrees and climbed to almost 64 by mid afternoon. Light & variable winds were a welcomed change from the day before and made for a pleasurable, October outing. The afternoon bite was definitely better than the morning as we caught probably 60 or more smallmouth bass up to 4 pounds in the last 4 hours of the day. Definitely a great day for the numbers of fish caught in a short period of time. Once the water started to warm up, the bass seemed to come alive. On one area, we must have caught over 25 bass in an area smaller than the size of my 20-foot boat! That’s what I call concentrated! Being able to fish in a T-Shirt at this time of year is always a plus but catching that many fish while doing so is an anomaly! What a day!!!!!

Today, I had the pleasure of fishing with Jay & Max on lake Champlain in Mississquoi Bay. I had high expectations, having been there several times in the last week with great success. Unfortunately, the last two days had provided us with heavy winds and even heavier rain. The water temps had dropped from over 70 degrees on Saturday to 63 degrees today. The winds were from the N/NW at 5 to 10 knots in the morning and switched to a west 15 by afternoon. Cloudy skies soon gave way to sunshine, early in the morning with the air temps reaching 65 by late in the day. The aggressive, spinnerbait fish that I had been seeing had almost all but disappeared. Jay & Max did manage to catch about 10 smallmouth up to 4 pounds throwing these, but they weren’t very active. With the sudden drop in water temperature, I decided to get them into a slower presentation with tube baits. This was definitely a better choice as they began catching many more bass in the next few hours. We stuck with tubes for the remainder of the day and by doing so, increased the catch to over 40 bass by the days end. One last stop on an area I had not fished this season proved to be a great choice as both Jay & Max got into some of the best fish of the day. They caught about another dozen bass up to 4 pounds with the majority of them being over 3 pounds. A tough day of fishing, but by making these adjustments, a productive one!

Another day with Troy on Lake Champlain today, but this time the wind was there! We started with waves of about and ended with 4 footers. Temperatures went into the 80’s by afternoon making for a beautiful, fall day. We started dragging Carolina Rigs in about 12 feet of water and caught a few small smallmouth up to 2.5 pounds. I slowly moved out until I found some better fish in the 23 to 3 foot depth. We didn’t catch too many, but they were from 3.5 pounds up to 5 pounds. The larger fish were definitely in the deeper water in this area. We tried plenty of other areas and caught a few fish in just about every place we fished. When the waves got too bad to hold in any one area, I threw out a couple of drift socks and we drifted a long shoal and caught several more bass. By 5:00 we had had enough and headed back to the boat ramp in 4 to 5 foot waves. Another day with about 15 or so bass caught and several others lost. It was another tough bite, considering that we should be in a full fall feeding frenzy by now. I can’t wait for cooler weather!

I fished with Troy again today, but this time we headed to Lake Champlain. Flat calm conditions and lack of wind was nice to see on the lake this morning! Usually the lake blows 4 out of 5 days, but we had light & variable winds today. Water temps were in the low 70’s and the air temps reached almost 85 degrees by the end of the day. Several smallies up to 4 pounds were caught on tubes in the first spot and a few pike also took jerk-baits when thrown to the weeds. We caught fish in water as shallow as 5 feet up to 30 feet deep. Everything from Jerk-Baits to Carolina Rigs were thrown as we covered plenty of water looking for schooling fish. Only a few fish were taken from each place we fished, but no serious schools were found. The water is still too warm for the fish to concentrate heavily as of yet. More cool nights allowing the water temperatures to drop into the 60’s will group these fish up making for a great spinner-bait & jerk-bait bite. By the end of the day, we had caught about the same as yesterday and lost plenty more smallmouth bass as well. Another slow day!