Champlain FLW

Charlie Hartley and I spent nearly the entire day fishing one area. The smallmouth were really in there, and Charlie knew how to catch them. He caught 17-04 and managed to make the cut in 10th place, so I'll hold off on divulging the lure and technique for now.

My day was really a disaster on the whole. I got some fish going on a Lucky Craft jerkbait when we started on the spot, and I proceeded to lose seven consecutive fish, most of which I got to see first. The best five would have given me 14 pounds. I lost a few more fish over the course of the day, and hung several heavy fish that turned out to be northern pike. I was on the verge of a mental meltdown – Charlie had his giant sack compared to my absolute zero as late as 2 hours prior to check-in.

I pulled it together a little bit late in the day, scoring 2 small keepers when I finally went back to the jerkbait. I then really saved my own rear with a quick pair of 2-pounders on a tube when we stopped at a spot on the way in. Somehow I managed to miraculously salvage almost 8 pounds out of the day.

As luck would have it, I finished as the first guy out of the money (lost a check on a tiebreaker, no less) – but as I said yesterday, I wasn't even thinking about a check. Official results aren't available yet, but I sat down with a calculator and the standings tonight, and if my calculations are correct I should finish no lower than 43rd place for the season. That would qualify me for the FLW Tour Championship as well as re-qualifying me to fish the Tour again next year.

While this particular fishing day was a huge disappointment, I'm ecstatic with the results overall. My first and foremost goal for this season was making it to the championship, and it looks like I pulled it off. You'll be hearing from me again from Logan Martin in August. I can't wait.

My first cast today was a 3-plus-pound smallie. But it was bad from there on. Not really, but it seemed like it at times. The big smallie was deep-hooked and died pretty quickly, and I couldn't buy another big bite after that. Pat Fisher put on a clinic today, and whacked a limit of smallmouths for over 17 pounds.

Pat was an exceptional pro partner. He was very up-front about everything we were doing, and really tried to help me out when the bites weren't going my way. I learned a lot about fishing the way we were fishing today, and I wouldn't have done as well without his help. We spent the last hour or so before check-in basically fishing some spots for me to cull some weight, with little expectation that anything we caught there might help Pat at all.

We were around good fish all day, but the big bites were just going his way. I managed to put together a reasonable limit, and was able to cull three times, twice in the last 30 minutes or so. I finished the day with 10-11 after the 8-ounce dead-fish penalty. In most tournaments that weight would put you in the Top 10, but this is Champlain. I'm in 75th place.

I figured that a Top 75 finish here would guarantee me a Top 48 finish for the year and a slot in the championship, and that is my only concern right now. I'm not even thinking about a check. I'd really hoped to get ahead today and give myself a little cushion, but now I've really got to go out and catch them tomorrow too.

I'm paired with Charlie Hartley for tomorrow. Charlie had 15-plus pounds of smallmouths today, so he's clearly around some decent fish, although his co-angler only caught two. He was doing the exact same type of stuff Pat and I were doing today, so I'm pretty confident about catching some fish tomorrow.

I think I'll need 10 pounds again tomorrow to hang onto a Top 75 finish. The way the co-anglers are whacking them up here, I won't feel confident with anything less.

I had just under 14 pounds. I had a ball, caught a lot of fish and had a great time dropshotting.

I only had a day and a quarter to practice. My truck got towed and it cost me a day to get it back.

Tomorrow will be more of the same. I'll just try to catch a few fish and enjoy myself.

I had 17 pounds and I'm in 22nd place, 15 ounces out of 10th. I caught probably three limits, but they caught the snot out of them again like they always do here.

I caught all smallmouths in 8-12 feet of water, and I think I have some fish left, but I'm not sure. I think someone might have slipped in there and caught some on me.

I didn't have a very good day today, as you can tell by the standings. I think I'm in 130-something place. I started out this morning and caught a couple of fish, but then the transducer went out on my trolling motor. I'm trying to fish deep-water humps and ledges, and that's hard to do without a depthfinder.

I ran around and fished some stuff I had a Garmin trackline from, and ended up catching a couple small fish. Then I left and flipped for some largemouths, and caught a couple of decent ones which helped me a bunch to get where I am.

I'm trying to evaluate what to do tomorrow. The forecast is for 20-30 mph winds, so I'm going to stay up here and figure out how to catch 15-16 pounds. I have a depthfinder now, so hopefully I'll go out and fish some of those humps before the wind gets too bad.

I arrived at 5:15 a.m. this morning, after driving straight through for about 15 hours, running on pure caffeine. Immediately upon arrival, I went out with Ron Wolfarth and made an attempt at prefishing. Ron wanted to check a few spots he'd found earlier in the week.
At the first spot I threw out a tube and it was eaten almost immediately by a nice keeper smallie. The fish were obviously still there, and that was all Ron needed to know. We pulled out and went to the next spot, noticing that the wind and waves were really starting to pick up. Champlain can get really ugly really quickly, and we were a few miles from the ramp across a very large bay. We made the executive decision to abort the mission and survive to fish another day.

We goofed around in the protected environs of the marina for a while but with no luck, so we packed it in and made a trip to a few local shops to pick up some tackle, and then headed back to the hotel to get our gear together.

It's frustrating to not have had more time to practice, but I think I'll be okay. Champlain looks similar overall to a lot of lakes I've fished in Minnesota, so I have an idea how to approach it.

I'm paired with Pat Fisher tomorrow. Pat fished the FLW Tour as a co-angler for a bunch of years before moving up to the pro side, so I've kind of been hoping to get paired with him and get a chance to talk to him about it. He's done well here at Champlain in the past, and it sounds like we may catch some fish tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about tomorrow.

It's been up and down up here. The first 2 days I got here the weather was great. It was sunny and no wind, and I caught them fairly decent. But the last 3 days it was cloudy, windy and rainy. I had another decent day or two, but today was no good at all. So I'm starting out with mixed emotions. I could zero or hero, either one. I can catch five fish, but the right kind of five is a different story. There's lots of small fish.

It will be interesting. This is a whole new adventure for me, on a northern natural lake, and it's a huge body of water to try to dissect. I'm trying to mostly catch smallmouths, which is something I don't do. So it's been an adventure to try and change my attitude and fishing style to catch smallmouths. But I've had a couple days where I caught them pretty good, so I'm going into it optimistic.

I'm just going to go fishing tomorrow. I hope I have five, and I hope they weight 14-15 pounds. I think that's what it will take for me to make the championship, and that's my goal.