Lake Champlain United - Forums

Round 2 of Joes last post (Round 1 ) from Sat consisted of Joe, Tunamas and I launching in heavy boat traffic Sunday morning at 7am. When we arrived there were 3 boats setting up! Fathead,Esad, and Homewrecker were already on the lake setting up on the spot!


We setup just outside split and slid into the busy bay to see what we could find… we had landed 3 in the 1st 30 min and felt good. 3 rods with 2 colors of lead and 3 rods with split shot sinkers in the others. Water temp was around 36-37 and we could count 7 other boats early in day inside the big bay. Blue sticks again took the most fish for us. Many colors fired but anything with blue wouldn’t stay in water tween 8am and 9am!

Boats in the playpen were; Mistress, Homewrecker, Fathead, Esad, bloodline,and a few others.
Around noon Instigator and other boats came out to play.

We had reached double digits before the 1st lake trout hit.
Love that kind of salmon action!

We had homemade bread, bacon wrapped scallops, marinated bbq chicken breast sandwiches with all the fixings…. This was finished with homemade chocolate chip cookies….

Lots of little lamprey 6-9” on fish. Joe fought the pig of the day well until
He got sick of me hitting him in head with net. Straightened a split ring and swam away…
That fish had 4 lamprey on him and we missed all 5 swimmers….


Today there was a period where we had multiple fish on and bites happening all over.
To keep 6 rods in water was impossible. Fishing like that is a BLAST!

We decided to troll back to vt when traffic got really heavy and picked
Up another on the abyss.

Great to see so may folks on the lake 1st week of March. I’m sure there were a
Few frustrated Ice fisherman that scratched the itch yesterday in this fleet!

Another great day on the Reelax! Catching started quick, and got quicker! We ate well. It was a great shakedown trip for me. The radio "smack talk" and shared information made it really feel like the Frostbite Fleet was coming alive. It was good to see a full parking lot!

Joe - You are correct. The small inch long parasites that look like lamprey larva are jawless leeches. More specifically Piscicola geometra. While I thought all leeches are smooth skinned, there is a whole class of segmented ones. We saw a bunch on the salmon yesterday. Harmless. I enjoyed sharing the day with you! Hundreds of geese dropping in was pretty epic, and you are a grill master! I'd share a boat ride with you anytime!

Looks like the 3 compadres had another blasting day on Reelax.
Spring weather in early March is very motivating.
Thanks for the report and pics, always a pleasure to read your posts.

That's what they are Scott! Apparently they have suckers on both ends for attachment, but only feed from the small end through a proboscis.
They only had the leech shape when anchored by the tail in the splash well.
Maybe they can be trained to target lamprey?

Look forward to the next time!

Thanks for the report. Jonesing to get out myself.
What was up with the mouth on that salmon? Damage that had been already done but healed?

Ahhspray wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 4:42 pm Thanks for the report. Jonesing to get out myself.
What was up with the mouth on that salmon? Damage that had been already done but healed?

We call them dork fish…. When they were smaller they got hooked and split open the bottom of the mouth. It doesn’t close and the tongue grow thru the hole. It’s ugly, but caused by us I think…