Lake Champlain United - Forums

I fished out of Converse today along with several other Frostbite boats and I had my faithful cold weather fishing partner Jim and his 19 year old daughter Kelsey aboard and it was her first trip fishing in temps below 70 degrees.
We launched shortly after 7 and had our first fish in the boat by 7:30, a medium sized laker and that was a precursor for things to come. We ran 2 rods on riggers down 25’ and 35’, 2 slide diver rods set back at 125’, and 2 longlines with a mix of standard salmon spoons and colors and the bite was steady, one lake after another ranging in size from 14” to over 30” and young Kelsey was getting a workout! At around laker # 14 we finally popped a salmon, a nice healthy 17” specimen and thought maybe our luck was about to change to silver but wrong! Right back to slime and at one point I caught Jim LECTURING a laker as he was about to release it saying: “THIS IS A SALMON LURE! Your kind do NOT eat these!!” Desperate times call for desperate measures so I decided to call my better half for luck as I have in the past which reminded Jim he had dog treats in his jacket pocket and he chucked a handful overboard for luck (long story for a different day) and 15 minutes later we had an 18” salmon on the longline. You can’t make this stuff up!
By then it was 12:30 and the wind picked up a bit to give us a solid chop and we fished another hour or so to round off our laker total at 30.
Kelsey was a rockstar and landed several fish and drove the boat at times when things were busy on the back deck, I think she’ll be back!!

Thanks again for the fishing trip Pat, Kelsey and I had a great time. She is now a believer that people can indeed fish from a boat ,in the winter, in Vermont, and not freeze to death . Once again a great trip on the Mistress with her full enclosures and heater. As an added note I will let everyone know, interesting that it was, I didn't find anything at all in the two salmon bellies. But the lake trout had some "big" alewives in their bellies. Hope everyone had a great day out there . Look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Tight lines, Jim

Nice job pat and crew,busy day beating up on the slimers!!!!

I am just as happy for the good report as I might have been on the water (well almost)
But thanks for another Winter trolling report and it warms my heart whenever a youngster is not only introduced to fishing, but to fishing for all the right reasons. Whenever I let my Miss Greenwood in on lure selections she REALLY gets into the game...Even if I have to hear what the next fish was caught on for the rest of the outing. Good stuff.
I might have considered making the haul up today myself but the mini fleet-float was (weather windows understood) a bit too short noticed. Still, my thanks again. Every report gets me closer to those more predictable March warm spells. Do some of the launches remain usable throughout the Winta?

Jump
PS 30 inch Lakers, pushing ten pounds, always send me back down the road feel alright
Anybody monitoring any hard water conditions?

Great to see you and Jim out today Pat The smiles on Kelsey’s face say it all!!! Nice showing…

We had a similar day but started with mainly salmon early in whalons..

Report to come:)