I fished alone today & checked out a couple of new bodies of water. Memphremagog was the first stop & I found the water looking more like coffee than a lake. The temps were ranging from 42 degrees in the shallows to 44 degrees out in open water. The shallow bite wasn’t very good with only a few smallies being caught. The open water shoals weren’t much better but the fish were bigger. By noon, I decided to take off the lake & try another smaller body of water hoping to find warmer water. Lake Salem was the place to be as I found 52 degrees in one section of the lake. Some areas held more bass than others, but at least there were concentrations! The sky was a mix of clouds & sunshine all day and the temps reached almost 60 degrees at the height of the afternoon. Jerk-baits, crank-baits & jigs were all that was used today and the fish came from 5 t0 10 feet of water in old weeds. Between the two places, close to 25 bass were landed making this a rather slow day for the time of year.

Only Stacy was able to fish today and we headed back to the same lake to see if we could do any better than yesterday. Fortunately, the weather was a complete opposite from what we had the day before. It was sunny and the temperatures rose to 60 degrees by the days end. Winds were light & variable and the water was beginning to finally warm up with all the sunshine. On the first cast of the day, a four-pound laker inhaled the fin-s jig presentation and went into the livewell. A few more lake trout hit the jigs, but unfortunately didn’t hook up. It’s never a good thing to get a fish on your first cast, as we were about to find out. Many more hours of fishing went by before another fish was finally caught. Stacy landed another four-pound lake trout and it also went into the livewell. For some reason, trolling flies doesn’t seem to be working very well yet. Hopefully, in the next few days or so the water will warm up enough to trigger the trout & salmon into taking the flies once again. Only two fish for our efforts today, tough bite once more!

I fished with Stacy & Crissy today for trout on a lake in northern Vermont. We headed onto the water at the crack of 10. No sense getting on the water too early at this time of year. The air temps were not much more that 45 degrees and the best water temp we could find was 43 degrees. The cloud cover & wind from the north made it feel a lot colder. We trolled fly rods and streamers for over three hours without a single hit. I decided that a change was in order and we began fishing fin-s jigs instead. It took quite a while before a fish finally took one of the jigs and not long after, Stacy landed a five-pound lake trout. This turned out to be the only fish we were to catch today. By 3:30 we had all had enough and decided to call it a day. A tough bite to say the least!

I had a window of oppertunity today and took advantage of it! Max & Ben were about to experience the best salmon fishing of their lives. The air was a chilly low 50’s and the water temps dropped as well to 39 degrees since last week. With all the rain and cool temps we had lately, I knew I had my work cut out for me today! Less than 5 minutes into the troll however, the first salmon was on and landed by Ben, while checking the lines. Great start, but it would be close to an hour before the next one was to arrive. The water level had risen almost 18 inches since last week and really cooled off as well, making the activity level of the fish rather non existant. No particular pattern or location accounted for the 8 salmon caught, as we trolled all over looking for the warmer water. Ben managed to get into a real beauty in the afternoon while once again, checking the lines. The fish hit about 10 feet off the side of the boat while he was stripping the line in. Talk about a chinese fire drill! The fish gave him a battle that he’ll never forget as he stripped all the line off the deck of the boat and plenty more, on the first run. Definately one of the largest salmon that I have ever seen from this area. The fish measured 22 inches and was in the 4.5 pound range. What a beauty! It was also the last one we saw as we trolled for about another hour without any luck. Great Day!!

I fished with Keith today on Lake Champlain for Landlocked Salmon and had an incredible day! The weather couldn’t have been any better with the air temps reaching into the upper 70’s with sunny skies. Water temps climbed during the day up to about 42 degrees in the shallows. Trolling with fly rods and streamers accounted for the 15 salmon & 2 brown trout caught in an 8 hour period. All but a few were released to bite another day! Too bad I forgot the camera. No pictures today! An amazing day to be remembered by both of us.