Lake Champlain United - Forums

We are heading out this afternoon to chase some eyes into dark. We will be running stick baits mainly but may try some other stuff. So 2 questions: 1. Running stick baits should I be trolling about the speed I troll for lakers (1.5-2.0) or should I be slower? Faster? 2. I have read they spook easy, are they apt to hit glow lures or will those scare them? I have read about using spin glows and crawlers, but the glo is the question.

1.6-1.8.
Stick baits are good.
Good luck looking forward to reading how you do.

Will they hit glow lures or will glow lures scare them?

You should be fine to run glow. They don't spook as easy as you might think. Just wouldn't be running a lot of bright lights on the boat(nav lights are fine) and looking into the water with your headlamp

I believe you asked about speed.....
1.5 and slower if you can.

We gave it a shot around juniper with no luck. We will give it another shot at some point, but marking all sort of stuff and not having anything even look at stuff was pretty depressing. Back to the drawing board.

keithm87 wrote:We gave it a shot around juniper with no luck. We will give it another shot at some point, but marking all sort of stuff and not having anything even look at stuff was pretty depressing. Back to the drawing board.

Welcome to walleye fishing

I plan to try for Walleye on the inland sea this weekend. I will let you know how I make out. I'm not expecting much as I am not a walleye fisherman, but I am willing to try!

Keith I accidentally caught my very first walleye on opening walleye weekend while trolling for salmon on Memphremagog. She was a beauty at just a tick over 29" and 10lbs on my hanging scale. Water was still very cold and I was worried she(?) hadn't spawned so I tossed her back after getting a pretty crappy photo of her(by myself and she didn't want to cooperate). The stringer was temporary and the blood not as serious as it looks in the photo.

I know water has changed a bunch since then but here is what she hit and how it was presented. I was fishing by myself and had my hands full with a little wind and chop so when I turned into the wind as I was answering my wifes text, I didn't adjust the throttle and ended up just below 1.5mph. 25FOW with my deep rigger set at 15ft and 20 back. Stickbait was a 6" scatter rap(suspending) lipped bookie pattern that has been productive for me on all species. she broke off both the plastic lip(which I retrieved), and one barb off the middle treble hook. As I said water has changed, I couldn't repeat, and it was an accident ...though I can now say that every walleye i've ever caught has been over 10lbs, without lying ...much. HA! Even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes.

That's a beast of a walleye, Ahhspray!! Congrats!

I haven't successfully fished walleye at night on Champlain, but I know people who used to do it all the time back when the walleye fishing was good. From what I gather, troll ~2mph with large stickbaits. Deep divers off the boards and shallow runners off the riggers down 20' or so. As far as where to go? I have no idea. Digitroll posted a very thorough list of all of the old haunts a year or so ago. I'm sure walleye can still be caught in those areas.

Crayfish wrote:That's a beast of a walleye, Ahhspray!! Congrats!

Thank you. Wish I could do it again though, I could be more help to Keith(and others) in addition to having some more fun with my son.

I see that walleye on the master angler.
Thats great, dont get too many walleye on the us side anymore nice catch.
Im heading out in the am in the north end of the broad lake for them.
Ill post how we do.

Nice "Toad"... very good of you to release her... she looked full, 60,000+ eggs now have a chance! Congrats keep at it

Heres our report for saturday 6/30.
Started out just north of valcourt island first thing in the am.
Strong west wind with decent size waves.
Calmed down late morning.
2 downriggers and 2 planer boards.
Trolled for 8-9 hours, did not chart many fish.
2 releases all day, 2 large yellow perch.
No walleyes.
It was a bright hot day, so im sure this was a factor.
We switched around colors all day, trolled deep water and as shallow as 40-45 fow.
Thats fishing.

We've had some success over the years at night, in the sea, long lining stickbaits off the boards.

I set my speed based on observing the action of the lure.

We've hooked up all over, hugging the island's and reefs and over deep water in the middle of the basin. Usually we'll see bait rising up in the column at some point and then focus on that area. Some moon light and lures with some reflectivity seem to produce. The Bomber Long A with the clear body and the reflective strip inside is a favorite.

Don't usually get big numbers but the ones we do get are generally on the bigger side.

We've tried running the lures deeper off the riggers but this has never produced for us at night. Although I have caught a few incidentals fishing deep for salmon in that general area during the day.

Night trolling for eyes is one of my favorite things to do.

Edited to add. I probably wouldn't have believed it if iI hadn't seen it but the first time I ever fished this method on a friends boat I laughed at him for spraying the lures with WD40. Twenty minutes later he was laughing as he netted the 10+ pounder I brought in on that lure.