When I first saw Lake Champlain I must admit it was a bit intimidating with the size of lake. Over 100 miles long!….but we planned to fish the northern end of the lake, just north of Plattsburgh, New York.

My first thoughts were ……..”where does one start fishing?”  So I got a map out and said to my brother-in-law Mike, let’s start shallow and work our way deeper.  The bass should be shallow and just finishing up the spawn.  I tied on a Slammin Shad bait and started twitching it over the flats in the back of a cove.  Well it didn’t take long and a smallmouth smashed the bait.  The smallies in the flats ranged from 1#-3#’s, nice fish, but we were after the bigger smallmouth.  My brother-in-law Mike tied a Slammin Sink Worm and slowly fished the bait back to the boat. The lure soon enticed a strike and he caught a nice smallie, about 2#’s. We both caught a lot of smaller fish but the shad bait produced more strikes.  The bass were keying on minnow baits.  We had a plan, one guy fish a faster bait (Slammin Shad) and the other throw a slower bait( Slammin Sink worm); we use this strategy a lot to determine the mood of the fish. Then we fish with the bait the fish want.  …DAH !

The next day we moved to one of the shoals and we started to catch bigger smallmouth. My son Dana went along and he had fun catching big smallies on topwater, “I can’t believe this lake….fish everywhere!” he said.

We caught smallies with topwater baits, Slammin Tubes, Slammin Beavers, Slammin Sink Worms and my favorite, Slammin Shads.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wNeA5OXq7s

We did catch nice largemouth back in the bays that had reeds and weeds. The largemouth were hitting Slammin sink worms Texas rigged. I would look for the reeds that had the most clumps of reeds, say three or more together. Just toss the bait in the reeds and hang on.  One thing I noticed  the bigger bass were in one section of the bay. I could see dark and light bottom transitions, and that’s were the bigger bass were located. I caught several 3#-4# with a Texas rig Slammin Sink Worm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQspjJEFk9Y

BAITS: The Slammin Shad is a plastic jerkbait that has a lot of action, plus you can kill the bait and watch it slowly fall to the bottom, and if you see the bait disappear….SET THE HOOK !

I rig the Slammin Shad with a #5 sickle hook , fluorocarbon leader and the main line, Fireline. “I love the stuff”.  The Fireline helps with the hook set.  Try a white Slammin Shad when you have clear water conditions, the fish will smash the bait.

The Slammin Sink Worm is a senko style worm that does it all. You can Texas rig it or wacky rig it. I Texas rig the worm when I am casting to an object, such as wood, thick weeds..etc.  Wacky style is when I am fishing open water and the fish want a slow presentation.  I wacky rig the weeds when there is pockets or openings in the weeds. This is a KILLER of a rig. 

Try a Slammin Sink Worm when you have open pockets of deep weeds.

Conclusion: We caught hundreds of bass and that’s no CHAMP story( Lake Monster that is supposed to live in Lake Champlain).

 Lake Champlain has some of the best bass fishing on the east coast, PERIOD!  WOW that was a fun week.

later……..a worn out Scott!

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