Lake Champlain United - Forums

I launched out of Shelburne Saturday morning and the water level is so low there's only 6" to 1' of water right after the launch area in some spots, had to pull motor up and slog thru the shallow spot until finding it about a foot deep for a few yards then is starts dropping off.

Decided to run the perimeter of the bay with a south wind picking up and try my new set of clip on inline weights with the mono line spooled spinning reels instead of setting out the downrigger and braid as I'd heard the spiny fleas were making an early presence known...boy was that report ever so true!

Overcast and surface temp around 64F
Followed the 20-30 foot depth contour & ran 1 with a 3oz weight & the other with 2oz weight both with a diving crankbait thinking I'd find smallmouth, then switched to a worm harness on one of the lines.

Hardly marked any fish and did the entire basin all the way out to Proctor & Shelburne shoals where I did a few laps around them too.


Nothing but gobs & gobs of spiny fleas!
It was an eye opener see that much gunk on my lines.
I pull a line in and have more than 2' of fleas on the line, gobs of them all over the inline clip weights and on the crankbait lip.

Switched up and drifted back & forth by the dropoff at Allen point in the bay and got skunked.
Called it quits around 1PM.

Sucks!
WE NEED A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SOAKING RAIN!

Yikes! Sounds like the fleas are out in force!

Yes indeed! The mono I was using is 15#, thought it would be good to go but the fleas are thick.
Fleas and extreme low water near launch and I guess I'll be heading to other spots from this point forward.

I launched out of Converse at 5:30 am and headed south fished from south of Otter Creek to Button Bay. No fish just lines filled with fleas. They were so thick I had to cut the line to remove them. It was faster to cut and retie than to try to pick them off. I was using 20# mono. They were also attached to the down rigger cable so I don't know if heaver line would work.

I've been using 50 lb moni. No fleas. A 15 ', 12 lb mono leader.

Looks like a good solution.. 30 lb isn't cutting it.