Lake Champlain United - Forums

With snow in the driveway at 6 am and heavy salt on the roads I called it along with 2 other boats I know due to the road conditions today. 8 am Reggie had an open seat for me so I made it to his house by 9:08 am plotted on my Apple Maps. 4 other trailers at the launch when we dropped it in the water and set lines off Garden 9:30 pm. Landed 4 salmon in the first hour and when we picked up 1:30 pm we finished at 11 for 14 after 10 in a row without a dropsy. Some real nice fat fish 17' and 18" and a Shoot-Out specimen very fat taping out at 22". Reggie had a prototype Crazy Ivan called a Bingo Wing pictured below that took 4-5 fish. Fish were hitting diver rods and riggers between 20 and 30 ft down. Other bites were an array of lures. Wind came up and we were the last boat in at 2:00 pm. We made hay for 4 hours! 11 fin DNA clips to start out for the 2026 year! The last time I fished with Reggie 2 or 3 years ago we landed 8 walleyes that night for 4 hours of effort.

Perfect December day! Plenty of fish. Best part was we got just 2 lakers and lost count of how many salmon. Kept 2 fat 18 inchers for dinner.

They were chewing yesterday between the big wind switches Ken! Didn't really matter what you had in the water. We only landed 6 lakers so that was a bonus. These fish have been really chunky and ahead of previous years in size for zero age salmon this time of year. Bode's well for March fishing. No lampreys either. We had a small window from the wind switches of 4 hours yesterday.

Great to get a late ride on a day you were scared to trailer your boat out. Reggie saved the day for sure!

I would characterize it as common sense Matt.

You need a Ford or Ram to get the boat to the ramp on crappy road days!

Happy faces tell it all.
Looks like it's the beginning of a great frostbite season.

The past week has been really hot with two trips with Randy and a trip with Reggie yesterday Gerry in the past week. The challenge has been the wind that has been fierce the last 6 weeks since the Shoot-Out. Water temp is 42F which is way ahead of 38F 3 years ago on December 10th. Temperatures and snow stay normal this could go into mid-January! Randy will be back out after Christmas!