Lake Champlain United - Forums

I would like to start off by sharing a few thoughts about this tournament for the larger audience that will end up reading this report. Everyone who has ever participated in the DYP has already experienced this, but, for those of you who haven't it may be some interesting stuff. Immediately following, I will post the pictures and the report for the day from the perspective of the McGuire Family half of the crew of the Country Angler. I would encourage everyone who participated in the tournament to do so as well in responses to this post.

In my personal experience on the subject of fishing as a kid back in the 80's, everything that was known about the tips, tricks, and techniques of catching fish was not something to be shared much with other people. Everybody had their secret spots, their secret presentations, or things that they would do that they kept to themselves. I think that was a very common thing back then, and even today. Which is very understandable, as you don't want a whole bunch of anglers to be coming in to your spots, using your techniques, and fishing out the waters we all enjoy so much.

And then there's the people like Reelax, Homewrecker, Surprise, anyone who has posted a fishing report, and espescially a couple of our fellow anglers who are no longer with us, Jim Martino of Honeybee Lures, and of course the famous Fishy1 Matt Glebus. These guys took a different approach. They shared with the "new guy". Helped struggling anglers with their technique. By doing so they only helped the fishery they care about so much. By spreading the love and appreciation for the sport, like some sort of backwards virus that only brought good things to the people who were exposed. This DYP tournament is that philosophy put into practice in the most ultimate way possible.

Lets take the example of Reelax and Homewrecker in a hypothetical DYP tournament. A couple of old and best fishing buddies who have an incredible knowledge of catching fish. You can tell how comfortable they are with eachother, by how much trash talk goes down between the two behind closed doors. Best of friends. In a normal tournament, guys like that would team up, go out, have a great time, and kick some angler butt. However, in this tournament, they are assured to be pitted against eachother by choice, and teamed up with a totally randomly selected partner, often times a complete stranger. Imagine two complete newbies to the sport of fishing that enter this tournament that are paired with these guys. They are immediately adopted as part of the partnership or team, and shown all of the strategy, and technique and even spots to fish, that have been developed and discovered over decades of experience, and thousands of hours on the water. There is no animosity towards your opponent, because the opponent is one of your partner's best friends. Immediate bonds are made with the partner who you just met hours earlier. Even Liam said on the truck ride home yesterday that it felt weird we only met our partner for yesterdays derby in the morning. After one day of competition, it felt like he was just one of the fishing buddies we had always known. It is important to note however that this particular year, Homewrecker and Reelax did not have newbies aboard, but experienced fishermen. One was even a past rotary champion if I am not mistaken. But, the spirit of sharing with a new previously unkown partner was still there in the case of the Reelax crew.

I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of painting the picture for the reader here, but, Let's just say It's the only competition I have ever been involved in, where when you get beaten by your opponents, it makes you happier than when you win yourself. It is a very unique and special experience.

On to the report.

The crew of the Country Angler for the DYP 2023 consisted of myself and Liam, competing as a family team. We Were however a boat short for the drawing, so we volunteered to be entered into the drawing to give the odd "no boat" entrant a boat to fish out of. Same rules as everybody else only running 4 rods. 6:00 am the boat was in the water, and I was walking down to the ramp with my new partner Mat, "VT2U". Liam was at the helm, and we headed out onto the water.

We decided to set up south of Thompsons because of the north wind. Figured it would be good to get to know eachother and the gear in calm waters first. Mat was very familiar with marine electronics, rods, reels, lures, etc, but was not super experienced in the downrigger or trolling department. However it was very soon that he was totally proficient in all aspects of running the program. It wasn't long before we boated the first silver.





Then Mat was up, no picture on that one. Then another for Liam.




Well, we found the fish, and it wasn't even 7:00! The next fish was the heartbreaker for the Country Angler crew. 4.5-5 lb salmon breakoff 6 feet away from where I was standing with the net. Ouch. Swam away with our Crazy Ivan: Crazy Ivan. But that's the way it goes sometimes. Next we decided to gamble way south, Scotch Bonnett, Basin Harbor. One laker, tons of marks.




Knowing that was a bit of a Hail Mary anyway, we headed back north to the mouth of the river, nothing on the graph. Little more north, the sonar lit up. OK, lets set up guys. Thats where we had a big release. Turned out to be a 30" 10.05lb Laker, a PR for Liam.




Next up was Mat, another nice laker.




Who by the way, is a laker fisherman. He thought it was funny that we were trying to avoid them, as they are his target species when he hits the lake in his kayak to jig them up. But, we all knew what species we were there for that day. The big salmon. Unfortunately for us, the one that got away was our biggest of the day, and we hadn't kept any of the 18-19" Cookie cutter salmon from earlier in the day, and our last wasn't even of legal size. Our final count for the day was 5 salmon, 6 lakers, 1 lost big salmon, and 3 unknowns where nobody was home. So, 11/15. That's a pretty respectable day for our boat, espescially with the salmon count.

We shared the water with some of the greatest anglers on the lake, with a coulpe photo ops of them trolling by.





But, the 8 hour tournament went by as most fishing days do in our boats. Just, Like, That. before we knew it we were back at the ramp getting ready for the cookout. Here's the Basscatcher with her crew of Dilly Worm and his daughter.





Speaking of those guys, I'd like to present to you, the 2023 DYP Youth Champion. Here they are weighing in her winning fish.





And last but not least, I'm more than happy to announce that the 2023 LCU DYP Champions are:

Striper192001

Larry Dailey

With a winning fish of 3.21 lbs. Congratulations guys! It really could have been anyone's tournament out there this year, everybody went out there and fished great. Reelax reported over the vhf at 1:45 he was fighting a fish, and would do what they could to get there at 2:00. I was urged at the cookout by the man often dressed as Santa while trolling in December for an honorable mention at the cookout, so I will do it again here. Team Homewrecker and AvgJoe weighed in the second place fish with a weight of 3.19. Very close.

We had an awesome cookout as usual, Dogs and Frogs from Matt and Dean, with contributions from everyone else in attendance. I even started down the road of getting off sugary soda, in favor of AvgJoe's fizzy lemon lime seltzer stuff, which is much better for you. My table fare however, not so healthy, but wicked delicious. Bacon wrapped scallops, stuffed cohogs, etc. A very LCU lunch. I look foreward to hearing the perspectives of all of the other fishing vessels in the fleet, as well as seeing any pictures that were taken posted up in response.

I'd also like to thank all of you old regulars and new additions for making this event and day what I have always experienced it as in the past. A very special and unique competition like no other, with no hard feelings. Only fun, old friends, new friends, and sharing the love of being outdoors and fishing.



Fish ON!

Well my psychological tactics while being taken seriously didn’t help our results. Telling Dean and Jack the night before that I had a previous rotary winner on board didnt keep either from giving up:( Jon has probably never won a derby but the night before it sure sounded good:) Jack still believes it;)

My partner Scrumj turned out to be Jon Rundle, the son
Of one of the early generation of trollers like super cab, Bill Mooney, Surprise, Vince Datillio and others. Many times when you hear these guys talk about the old times Bill Rundle’s name is part of the stories. The old school knowledge turned out to be abundant on our troll and Jon didn’t need to be shown how to do anything.

Bite was as solid aS ever today we caught fish from the mansion the long pt, back to Thompsons and all over Outter converse bay. Counter ended at 19 with 13 of them salmon.

Short sets with small willow verticle blades got hit best.
Cheaters up 4’ from blades were most active.

Great to talk to all the derby participants on the water and again at the bbq it is always great to see smiles from people who are feeling the pull from a successful troll.

Good to meet the warthog crew at the bbq. You guys have the passion it takes to catch big fish. I’d love to hear some of your adventures described here!

Jack and Joe and Dean, thanks for running the DYP this year. It is great to keep the tradition going.

Congratulations John Olsen - Striper192001 on the win.
I am just relieved Homewrecker didn’t win cause I am not sure I could have taken the gloating:)

Fish on!

What a fun time on the water! Great to meet some new folks passionate about fishing. I learned a lot this weekend. Thanks for accepting new guys into the fold and showing some of us the ropes.

Looks like a great time. Sorry I missed it this year with recovery from surgery. I definitely won't miss it next year.

MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH! What a great outing on a sunny day in May. My partner was the pick of the litter in Average Joe. Got started a little late as I had to work but done at 615 and at the launch by 7am. We launched and after a brief tutorial Joe was managing the wheel as I began setting the spread right away at Picket, we wanted steel in the water. First rod in and first rod out, fish on slapped on the auto pilot and we landed our first of two nice salmon the bigger one was 21”. After that we finally got the four riggers set with 8 shiny offerings and after another brief tutorial Joe was all over that spread working it and catching fish as the counter climbed. We had a lot of laughs mostly at Matt expense while we searched for that fish. And finally the moment we worked for the weigh in our 3.17 lb 21”fish looked like a lock until after ten minutes of fish wrestling by John to get the last fish from the well and there it was 3.21 ugh! But hey that’s what it’s all about good times with good people and great eats. Congratulations to John on a great fish. Thanks Jack for your hard work on the trophy it looks fantastic. Thanks to everyone that joined this event that was born out of the sense of community I found on this site those many years ago. And watch out next year cause I’ll be back! FISH ON!

What a great time that was! Paul (Voyager) and I were in the water by 6am. I had done some pre-fishing on Wednesday and found active fish off Long Point, only biting blue/silver. We started there Saturday morning with nothing to show for our efforts. Changed up colors ... nothing. Moved to outer Town Farm and finally got a hit. It was a real nice 9-10lb laker. Not long after that we picked up our first silver. We worked that area a little longer, but no more bites. We started working south and stumbled onto a pod of active fish. After dialing in the colors they wanted (with Paul's hand-taped Mooselook Jr's and a Crazy Ivan Fat Buzzy being the hot ones), we picked up a fish or 2 on about every pass!

The first salmon we kept was a nice fat 18"er that was bleeding badly. You should have seen the blood trail the length of my boat to the cooler! Later on I decided to keep another 18" for myself since that was about all we were catching. Eventually we caught a very acrobatic 19" / 2.54lb salmon that we thought might be a contender, given the radio chatter about the lack of fish over 19".

We ended up catching 11 salmon and 2 lakers and had a blast!

Thanks for putting this together, Jack! As usual, it was a lot of fun catching up with people I've known for 40yrs (Reelax), people I've met in the past, as well as meeting some of the newer members (and the ones who weren't YET members!).

Thank you, Dean, for the great eats. Those frog legs were fantastic! Thanks for the hot dogs and the secret cheater weapon, Matt. Thanks for the beer, Joe. And thanks to everyone else for their contributions to the bbq. Good food and great conversation.

Congrats, John (Striper or Stripper? ) on the "W". You didn't really need to have those fish splash me TWICE while you were trying to wrestle one out of the livewell, though! Man they were lively.

See you on the water!

Till next time.

Congrats to the winner and to all participants. I missed the last few years but it is still anchored in my heart.
Thanks Jack to continuing the DYP.
Cheers everyone.

Great reports. Looked like a lot of fun both on and off the water. Some day I will join in on the fun!

Thanks Jack, Reelax, Homewrecker, & Crayfish for those great reports from the other DYP teams. Its good to see how the fishing went for the other boats out there.

As for us... Half of our family team was still asleep as some of the other anglers hit the water, but I got my tween out of bed and we launched from Converse at 8 AM. Motored to the middle of Town Farm Bay and started to set lines. It didn't take long to start getting bites, and the first fish of the day was a 19" salmon on a wonder-bread pattern spoon with a copper back, on 5 colors of lead. We made a few loops through the spot we picked up that fish and caught another salmon on a CI Gold Bomb Pop on 4 colors of lead and an inline planer. Seemed like gold or copper spoons on leadcore were doing the trick and the 2 downriggers hadn't had a bite yet so we pulled one and went with three leadcore lines, 2 on inline planers and one straight off the stern. We picked up another salmon nearby on a speedy shiner (sunrise/copper), then a small laker.

Heading further west in search of bigger fish, we got our only downrigger fish of the day - barely ! The fish was jumping and flopping like crazy, broke the line and spit the hook but landed in the net. We really don't know if we had hooked it on the sliding cheater or on the mainline lure that was 20' down, but it went for a gold-back spoon one way or the other.

We kept trolling away from where we had been catching fish in hopes of finding the big lunker. In hindsight that was a mistake, but how could we know without trying ? After turning the corner past the mansion it got quiet. A bigger laker south of the green buoy off the mouth of the Otter Creek was our only other fish. We pulled lines by the time we got to Scotch Bonnet, motored over to Barber Point where the water was greenish and more clear than at Town Farm, but couldn't entice anything to bite over there.

This was our 3rd DYP and each one gets a little better for us. Year #1 we caught 8 lakers, no salmon. Year #2 was something like 7 lakers, 1 steelhead. Year #3 the salmon actually outnumbered the lakers and were just big enough for the DYP Youth trophy !

Thanks for organizing the DYP this year Jack ! We can't wait for next year !

I was excited that I could make the DYP this year. I was really looking forward to picking everyone's brain at the bbq. Thanks to all your help online and Jack spent some time with me 2 seasons ago to set up my boat. All of that has been a huge help for me.
Larry is a passionate fisherman, just didn't have any experience with downriggers. I put him at the helm and we set up at Pickett and headed toward Garden Island. I have decided to mount only two downriggers so I set them and put out and inline planer and a flat line. We got our first salmon 15 min in.........a lean 17 inch fish. Then another rod fired and the a good lookin fish was jumping all over the place ! We got it to about 15 feet of the boat and it took one last jump and threw the hook. I think it would have been our biggest fish of the day. We were trolling and found two hot spots and marked them on the graph and what I loved is that we spent the whole day between Garden Island and Thompson's Pt. We had fish and bait on the screen and couldn't see leaving there.
It must have been a slow point and I think Larry and I were talking about family etc when one of the drags started singing........I jumped for the rod and grabbed it.........something didn't seem right and I look back at the screen and realize we are REAL shallow. I hit the switch to let out cable and shout to Larry........NEUTRAL !!.........lol I realized later that I should have just loosened the drag on the riggers rather than feed out cable with switch. You have probably all been there and understand what a cluster we had going. I am trying to manage it the best I can and Larry has never seen it before so is trying to do all the things I kept asking him to do..............At some point the right rigger hangs up and I see the Big Jon arm bend and then the cable breaks. Even though we had got on the other side of the where the other ball was it wouldn't come loose so I had had enough and I cut that cable.
You can imagine what the lines looked like now..........I tried to make sense of the mess we had and started to clean it up. I didn't have a crimper so couldn't attach the other spare ball so I figured okay......we have two in-line planers, flat line and I had wanted to learn how the slide diver worked.
I set up long lines with planer boards and flat line. I set up diver but I couldn't keep it from coming to the surface even though it wasn't releasing. While I played with it over the hour and a half, it sometimes diving and then back to the surface.......we caught three fish on it ! Then I had an epiphany.......the weight on it should probably be forward...oh man, did I feel dumb.
Sorry for the long report but I wanted to tell you all our adventures..........oh, as some point I discovered I had the parts to fix one rigger. We put it all together and I tried to crimp it with the fishing pliers I had.....it looked good. I hooked it to the other ball I had and eased it overboard and it immediately came off the cable and went to the bottom..........wow.
I was excited for this day to meet all you guys and get some tips which is exactly what I was able to do at the BBQ. I had no illusions we had a chance of winning except that the night before I spoke to Larry and he asked what he could bring and I jokingly said "Just bring some good mojo so we can win this thing"
Thanks to Jack for all his help, and for putting this on. BTW, I actually know the Warthog crew and have fished with Cody's father for years.

Thanks guys for everything........I have all the new things on order all ready !

Great job with the report and it looks like a great time was had by all. Years ago we had many guys fishing from Willsboro and guys like me who came up on weekends and on vacation could get some help from many of them. The guys who lived by the lake could realy help. Most of the people either moved, died or stoped fishing. I am now able to spend weeks at the lake and try to help those who were in the same boat I was years ago. It would be nice to have more NY fisherman add to the forum. Looking forward to a great year on the lake. Thanks to all who help to make everyones day a great day to fish. Thanks

Looks like fun, wish I could have been there but other family obligations kept me away. Hopefully next year I can join in on the fun again, been too long.

Thanks Jack for organizing DYP 2023 and well said on why this place is so special! Congrats to the winners!

Also big thanks to all those who enter with boat and trust a stranger with their personal gear in deep water. It’s a rare concept in this world, but it appears to be a common thread with those who fish that there’s a built-in level of trust. Hand your vehicle keys to someone you don't know and trust they will get your boat in the water and keep your vehicle on land? Sure, it will be fine LOL!

DYP 2022 was my first intro to the salmon hunt and trolling methods used to target them. DYP 2023 was a reflective moment on how much experience had been gained in the past year through the information shared here and many trips on the water with Reelax and a couple others. Many, many thanks!

@Striper-Saw you confidently dragging something at the surface and legit thought it was a new technique, like running teasers for salmon-marlin. Had me fooled but it sounds like it worked!

@Homewrecker-Thank you again for the trip, tips, laughs, and frog legs. The leftovers were eaten for breakfast the next day!

Haha...........I said the same thing to Larry. That guys probably thought I had some kind attractor..........when I was really trying to get it to dive !

congrats to the 2023 winners and all who were able to attend. I am jealous and wish I could have been able to join you all.

Michael