Lake Champlain - August, 2020

Jon and I had been kicking around the idea of chartering a Captain on Lake Champlain for a while. We really wanted to learn enough to be able to start doing some successful trolling for Lakers and Salmon ourselves. We decided to head up in summer and after a little research, we found a reputable Captain that seemed to fit the bill for us.

DAY 1

 We met Captain Randy at the launch bright and early, and it wasn't long before we were rigged up and trolling deep for Lake Trout or Atlantic Salmon.

The lake was eerily calm even out in open water. Randy said that actually makes fishing a little tough but as someone who gets motion sickness, I was fine with it.

It wouldn't take long for Captain Jon to get on the board. The lampreys are alive and well as you can see by the scars on this fish and the actual lamprey that we pulled off of him. Nasty suckers!

My turn, my very first lake trout as well.

Lake Trout were catch and release, so we were also hoping to land a few Atlantic Salmon to take home. Jon was up and connected on this nice one. Steaks!

I recall the fishing slowed a bit during the hot mid-day, but we kept at it. Here's Captain Jon learning what he could from Captain Randy to prepare us for our DIY the next day. Captain Randy was happy to share.

We wanted to find some Salmon so we picked up and headed south to a deep bay closer to shore, but despite multiple presentations at different depths, they were elusive.

A little later on in the afternoon, we headed back out to open water and found a few more cooperative Lakers. Nice ones too!

DAY 2 - DIY

So the weather while still nice had changed and we were faced with some pretty large swells out on the main lake. This turned out to be a challenge for us in the Grumman and after fighting them for about an hour, the waves won and we decided to head to Valcour island and relax instead.

I know it looks very nice and calm in this photo, but believe me it was anything but out on the open water.

So we just just chilled out on the island, took a little hike and enjoyed the scenery and history.

We will be back as we are determined to figure out this trolling thing enough to be proficient on our own in the Grumman.