Black Friday on the Lake

[Dilly Worm]

Lots of boats out today !

My older daughter and I met up in the socially-distant way in separate boats with Detritus & kids at Red Gate this am. We started heading north and once again, things were off to a fast start as we had a fish on once we had 2 lines in the water. Unsurprisingly, it was a smallish laker. Out boat ended up going 8/8 with 7 lakers and 1 small salmon. It was our first salmon since June ! Hopefully more to come soon...

Only lures with a trout theme did any catching for us today: Speedy Shiner Brown Trout, CI Purple Brown Trout, and Speedy Shiner Rainbow Trout, with the salmon on this last lure about 35 ft down in 60 FOW near Scotch Bonnet. 6 of the lakers came on 5 colors of lead, the other 2 fish were on a downrigger.

The only Black Friday shopping I want to do is a landing net that floats

Off to a fast start

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Reeling in another laker

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First salmon since June

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Photo courtesy of Detritus

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[Detritus]

Figured I'd just add to Dilly's report, as we fished the same areas today.

Congratulations on the salmon, Condolences on the net.

We went 7 for 11 today, 1 baby laker, a couple small Lakers, a few bigger Lakers, 2 salmon on, one boated.

First salmon was a really nice one, 5 lb neighborhood. Tess was up, and one of the times it was doing double flips in the air behind the boat, he spit the hook. First release of the day too.

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Laker for Tess

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Laker for Liam

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First ever salmon for Tess. We considered keeping it, but, it was 16-17 inches. A little small. So, we put him back for next year.

We ran an assortment of spoons, big, small, silver, copper, brass, couple of stick baits. 2 colors of lead down, 2 out on inline planers. Riggers ran from 24-60 feet down, with sliding cheaters on the deep ones. Nothing stood out for all of the Lakers for color or depth.

But according to Todd, this is a bruised plum Crazy Ivan.

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The only lure that had salmon on at all today, and this one had both of them.

Boat ran great again.

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Saw a lot of boats out there today, Digitroll, On The Job, Us and Dilly, NuViking, heard Thorny I think, and my friend the previous owner of the Country Angler launched after we came in. Forgetting a few more too, but recognised the boats. Talked to Mike and Ron, wind died right down too.

Another great gray drizzly day on the lake. 37° surface water temperature in the river by the way. 46° neighborhood in the lake.

[troutcrazy]

Hey awesome! I caught one small salmon too! Haha it's also the first I've seen since June. We're closing in on them!

It's great to see kids getting into fishing!

I was farther south today. Chatted briefly with Chessieman and Surprise.

My salmon bit a Crazy Ivan "Raz" about 30' down in 60fow.

I stopped at a potential walleye spot to see if I could win the lottery. I deployed a deep-diving crankbait and immediately caught a fat laker, which was a pain to release from the THREE treble hooks. So I switched to jigs with curly tails. I quickly caught another fat laker and then a smallmouth before giving up and getting after the silver again.

Plenty of lakers again. The funniest thing happened. I reeled in a laker that had BOTH my spoons in its mouth! It couldn't decide between the Raz and the PPE, apparently. I am truly puzzled as to how that happened.

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[Reelax]

Sounds like you are all having a blast on the late season lake.... Amazing to see the kids involved and all the great adventures... thanks for contributing and making the lake such a great place to be so late in the season!!!

Fish On !

[riddlervt]

Nice reports! I am also happy to see the kids getting into fishing. I started both my son and daughter on lake champlain. Now they both are serious fly fisherman and outfish me most of the time. I fished from shore. Caught probably 3 dozen decent perch. All released to get bigger by ice fishing time.
Riddler

[Dilly Worm]

The funniest thing happened. I reeled in a laker that had BOTH my spoons in its mouth! It couldn't decide between the Raz and the PPE, apparently. I am truly puzzled as to how that happened. two spoon laker.

That's just crazy. What I'm most amazed about is that you were able to take a photo of that while fishing solo in a kayak !

Here's to catching more salmon !

[ChessieMan]

Simply another day of "Catching" yesterday - just no other way to put it - don't know how many we caught, but I do know that 15 we taken on a Sun Rise Speedi off the dipsy 30 pulls back, the purple/black HB ran a close second and the Pearl Rainbow HB was in at 8 or 9 - all the fish were on the VT side along the 80' line just north of Potash Pt.

Still no salmon, but the new brining/smoking recipe is working great with smaller lakers, so neither Scott nor I are complaining

Tried Scotch Bonnet for a bit, but no releases - saw Dilly and had a quick chat w/Trout Crazy.

Despite that lack of salmon, browns or steelies - I can honestly saw, that the last 4 trips were the BEST catching - and I do mean "catching" I've had in the last 10 years and the lakers are fresh, feisty and healthy - we had several 26-28" and one 30".

Let's see what next week brings.

[TruViking]

Lots of boats out today !

My older daughter and I met up in the socially-distant way in separate boats with Detritus & kids at Red Gate this am. We started heading north and once again, things were off to a fast start as we had a fish on once we had 2 lines in the water. Unsurprisingly, it was a smallish laker. Out boat ended up going 8/8 with 7 lakers and 1 small salmon. It was our first salmon since June ! Hopefully more to come soon...

Only lures with a trout theme did any catching for us today: Speedy Shiner Brown Trout, CI Purple Brown Trout, and Speedy Shiner Rainbow Trout, with the salmon on this last lure about 35 ft down in 60 FOW near Scotch Bonnet. 6 of the lakers came on 5 colors of lead, the other 2 fish were on a downrigger.

The only Black Friday shopping I want to do is a landing net that floats

1st laker of the day.jpg

reel it in.jpg

a small salmon.jpg

bassmobile.jpg

Love seeing the smiles on these kids faces!
I'm packing up now to bring mine back down to Converse.

Black Friday for me was productive but just one Salmon.
Going to utilize all the great info I am reading all over this site. Thank you to all of you who contribute. In all my years of fishing, from the Bluefin Tuna to Atlantic Salmon, I have never seen such a tight group of Fishermen and Fisherwoman who contribute to their comrades success and safety out there on the H2O! It's really a great thing. I'm proud to be apart of this Forum as well as an(hopefully) inauguration into the Frostbite Fleet!
Thanks to all of you. You can never get to much advice or knowledge in this thing we do!

I'll be out on Converse Bay at 2:00- after sundown, still no Radio but I will keep my eyes out and salute all those warriors that are out there slaying the waters

[TruViking]

Hey awesome! I caught one small salmon too! Haha it's also the first I've seen since June. We're closing in on them!

It's great to see kids getting into fishing!

I was farther south today. Chatted briefly with Chessieman and Surprise.

My salmon bit a Crazy Ivan "Raz" about 30' down in 60fow.

I stopped at a potential walleye spot to see if I could win the lottery. I deployed a deep-diving crankbait and immediately caught a fat laker, which was a pain to release from the THREE treble hooks. So I switched to jigs with curly tails. I quickly caught another fat laker and then a smallmouth before giving up and getting after the silver again.

Plenty of lakers again. The funniest thing happened. I reeled in a laker that had BOTH my spoons in its mouth! It couldn't decide between the Raz and the PPE, apparently. I am truly puzzled as to how that happened. two spoon laker.JPG

You got doubled by one fish? Lol
I would love to hear the story behind that.. dis it hit and then go for more?