Lake Champlain United - Forums

After having the boat in the shop getting hydraulic steering install, it was great to launch from Converse at 1st light Sat and enjoy a calm fall day with Dreamcatcher. It was time to shake down the new system and also the autopilot conversion to hydraulic needed to be tested prior to the shootout.

We launched behind 3 boats, 2 that were here from NH. Good to talk to Brimstone troller today and his partner boat. We started north and they started south and we swapped areas after lunch.

Ken and I ran to the delta in front of the Boquette 1st. We found a crappy thermocline down around 90 ft. With the deep water as warm or warmer than the 60 deg surface down to that number:( the lake is warm and it will take a while to dissipate the summers buildup… I have switched back to 14lb flourocarbon, so fleas were there… but very manageable and collected on only barrel swivels and line terminations.

The bite for us was slow, we averaged about a landed fish every hr of our trip. One alarming thing to note was the large lamprey on almost all fish. Right now the 8-12” lamprey are Very active on the NY side beteen the Boquette and Willsborough:( we killed all we could get to…

The menu consisted of bacon wrapped scallops followed by cheese, salami and ritz crackers. I was so out of routine this morning…… I left the hot dogs in the refrigerator at home and we missed our 2nd lunch!

The interesting fight of the day came from a 20” BLACK smallMouth that took a crazy Ivan from 75ft down, over 160 fow… crazy fish was hungry suspended in the lake… what he was doing there was obimvious looking at the bait profile on the he graph.

The new steering shook down perfectly. One finger steering control with no cable feedback or sluggishness… I should have done this years ago:) the new integration with my autopilot also was excellent. There was not even a reteach required and it spins more gradual patterns without even a whisper of background noise. Frostbite here we come…. No more wasting my thermos of coffee at the launch thawing my cable steering system at the motor this year.

Good to be back out, but still need time to locate the salmon. We only hit 2 areas today and did not locate them in either spot.

Hope the guys from NH found em later in afternoon, they were headed to a good area to check… so stay tuned;)

Fish on!

Matt, did the same with small mouths up my way. Really dark colored and down deep off riggers.

Witch autopilot did you choose or install?

Wallyandre (Andre) wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:43 am Witch autopilot did you choose or install?

Integrated the current ap24 autopilot cable system into the new bay star hydraulic system Andre’. Could use old control
Head, computer and flux gate
Compas. Just had to add a special autopilot pump in place of the old cable octopus drive helm. Made it so I had 3/4 of the autopilot system all ready. Very interesting to see how much more smooth the ap24 is with hydraulic. And it didn’t even need to be retaught after the conversion…


Hope
To see ya down here in November..

Fish on!

Hey Matt - good to hear you, the Reelax and the Reelax crew are back on the water - I'm getting the itch again, but I'm gonna try and hold-out until the water temps drop a little or there is better defined thermocline in Fishville - hoping to see you guys soon - fingers crossed for the "Shoot-out" - Ed

Reelax wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:21 am

Wallyandre (Andre) wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:43 am Witch autopilot did you choose or install?

Integrated the current ap24 autopilot cable system into the new bay star hydraulic system Andre’. Could use old control
Head, computer and flux gate
Compas. Just had to add a special autopilot pump in place of the old cable octopus drive helm. Made it so I had 3/4 of the autopilot system all ready. Very interesting to see how much more smooth the ap24 is with hydraulic. And it didn’t even need to be retaught after the conversion…


Hope
To see ya down here in November..

Fish on!

You did the right thing and set-up. You can also control your ap through your Simrad Go by a t and cable on your nmea2000
As for November if our gov. still mandate a pcr test to come back I don't think we will be going. I did get 2 of those tests and it's not fun specially for somebody that suffer from chronic synatosis!

great report, lots of good advice that we put into use today.

glad to see Reelax is back on the water !

Nice move Matt switching to hydraulic steer.
As André mentioned, you can remove your AP24 control head and connect your Simard screen to your AC12 computer via NMEA200 to run your autopilot. I did it on my boat in spring and love the new setup. One less screen on the dashboard.
Looking forward to be able to fish Champlain again.... as soon as the restrictions are removed.

Good to see you out there and have a little chat.

Cousin Jeff and I got out on the Black Ghost on Sunday. We met the NH fleet at the launch and chatted occasionally on the radio. Our luck wasn't great with only one salmon (14") and a decent laker. We had a good tangle from a rogue fish that we never boarded. It's been a while and it was good to be back out.

As for lamprey - we didn't see any on the two fish we boarded. And speaking of Lamprey, the ECI drilling crew was up on the Chazy in Champlain, NY grouting up a leaky dam. Apparently, USFW suspected that the lamprey were migrating through the cracks in the underlying bedrock. I hope that helps!

Ken

That sounds awesome.
Thanks for the thermocline info. I was thinking I might get after the silver from the kayak again soon, but now it sounds like I'll keep after the walleye instead.

I have been watching the USGS surface temperature graph drop steadily during this week. It is at 56 today. This may be your weekend to try. I'm going to give it a go on Sunday.

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=04294500

Black Ghost (Ken) wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:54 pm Cousin Jeff and I got out on the Black Ghost on Sunday. We met the NH fleet at the launch and chatted occasionally on the radio. Our luck wasn't great with only one salmon (14") and a decent laker. We had a good tangle from a rogue fish that we never boarded. It's been a while and it was good to be back out.

As for lamprey - we didn't see any on the two fish we boarded. And speaking of Lamprey, the ECI drilling crew was up on the Chazy in Champlain, NY grouting up a leaky dam. Apparently, USFW suspected that the lamprey were migrating through the cracks in the underlying bedrock. I hope that helps!

Ken

Glad to hear your back on the Water Ken…. And it’s amazing your boys are now doing lamprey control!!!

Thanks for the update. Hope the bite pics up for the 6th.

AmFishFil Thinking wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 5:53 am I have been watching the USGS surface temperature graph drop steadily during this week. It is at 56 today. This may be your weekend to try. I'm going to give it a go on Sunday.

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=04294500

Great news, plan to launch from Converse Saturday with and old reliable crew.

Time to
Hunt silver

Can’t wait