Lake Champlain United - Forums

My son is likely to be moving to Newport next summer. Taking his boat with him. Any reports on that lake? Looking at the VT Master Angler entries, the lake is kind of like Lake Champlain with both cold and warm water species: landlocked salmon, rainbows, good bass fishing, etc.

Tom

From what I hear the salmon are hard to troll up in the summer unless you venture into Canada, as the deep water is mostly nord. The salmon can be caught in VT in the colder months when they are in the skinny water....

As Reelax said, most coldwater fishing in the peak of summer will be north of the border. The vermont side max depth is only around 40FT. There are a couple forum members who fish it though, and I think there was a post 2 years back of a 9lb salmon caught in the spring trolling on the VT side. Spring and fall I think people do troll it, and it gets fished heavily through the ice. There are runs of Bows, Browns, and Salmon into the rivers (Clyde, barton, black), used to be a huge walleye lake, but that has fallen off, but they still get them occasionally. Pike fishing is really picking up on the VT side of the lake.

Starting mid-may salmon are lcoming in the Canadian side w/o stopping at the border so they are in Canada illegally. Guys are trolling and jigging for them in the summer; yes, jigging for salmon.
Has for thee fishing in the winter there is a few hard core that manage to put 12ft alum. boat in the water when not frozen and through ice but pressure is nothing compare to the Frosbite crew, main reason is that the access are not easy., private or cities block the access.

I know this is a late add. My apologies. Still stuck in winter here.

As Keith mentioned, we do catch some nice fish on Memphremagog. I happened upon one a couple years ago that ended up weighing 9.9lbs. I bled it on the water and took it home so I'm telling everyone it likely lost at least .1lbs of blood and was 10lbs. After I posted about it, I had the fish and game official who was in charge of the trap and truck program there call me about it to see if it was one of his fish. I couldn't find a chip in it and I asked him which year they clipped no fins. He told me they always clipped one so she must have been a native! Made me a little sorry I kept her but the whole family enjoyed dinner that night.

In the summer, instead of traveling north to fish my son and I switch to Pike (frequently 30-40", personal best 42") and SM(son caught several Master Angler while trolling and casting). I've heard tales of the former Walleye fishery. I'd hope we see it again. Last season, on opening day of Walleye season I accidentally hooked up with one while salmon trolling (I got deep and slow turning into the wind). She was 28" and went back in the water safely. She was so fat, and water was still so cold, I thought she might not have yet spawned. I posted about her also. South Bay is a lot of fun in the early season too. Go to weedless presentations later in season. For cold-water after June, we go to Willoughby or Champlain. IMO boat/fishing pressure is not bad at all. ...except for a few of the sailing crews from time to time.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Ahhspray. Gotta laugh - you're not too late with your info. "Late" is when we're going to be able to go fishing this spring, or maybe I should say "later than usual". Like Digitroll in his post today, we're just gonna have to ski until the lake opens up.