Lake Champlain United - Forums

Hey im going up to lake champlain this weekend and wanted to see if there are still smallmouth on the beds up north. Any info would be great because ive never been to a lake as big as champlain!

Not sure if they are still on beds or not, but did catch a 3.5# smallie in ~4' of water last week. Possible it could have been on a bed, but couldn't see a foot into the water so no way of knowing for sure! The rivers are really dumping a lot of mud into the lake right now.

Awesome thanks for the info

I got a couple of smallmouths at the mouth of the Winooski today, and one of them was bleeding pretty badly so I kept it. Sad to say, she turned out to be an unspawned female. I was surprised about that, but thinking about it, I wonder if the river-spawning fish are holding back waiting for the river to stop going up and down.

Boatless in BTV wrote:I got a couple of smallmouths at the mouth of the Winooski today, and one of them was bleeding pretty badly so I kept it. Sad to say, she turned out to be an unspawned female. I was surprised about that, but thinking about it, I wonder if the river-spawning fish are holding back waiting for the river to stop going up and down.

The river spawners did their thing a month ago - not sure why that female still had eggs. Winooski temps have already hit high 70's. Way over the start for smallie spawn. I've heard of December salmon with eggs, so probably just random. I'm willing to bet most of the smallies in Champlain are done spawning by now.