This past week I stayed at Grand Isle State Park on Lake Champlain with my youngest son. I got 5 days on the water. For the days that I had to go to Burlington or Plattsburgh to hit a store, we did museums as we usually do.

 

Sunday, we launched right at the state park. It's almost all weedy over there and was 7mph winds with 17mph gusts, but the gusts were pretty much constant all day. I managed to land a 15.5" largemouth on a spinnerbait on my second cast, and my kid got one right after. Then the bite died down a bit, but I finally got another one later.

 

On Monday, we launched at the west side of the island. It was calm when we launched, but we had similar winds before we came in. The west side is largely a hard rocky bottom and the 12-20' area is fairly flat. I caught my first bass on a drop shot. My phone wouldn't switch to the camera because my hands were wet and maybe a little fish slime, and the fish hopped off my ketch board. I was so mad I almost throw the phone in the water, but just shut it off. Later on, we moved further north, figuring we can drift our way back and the winds picked up and I landed a 16" smallmouth dragging a football jig, and another on a deep diving crankbait.

 

On Tuesday, we did the Vermont National Guard museum and checked out Burlington when we had to go to the store.

 

On Wednesday, it was a nice and calm day with 3-5mph winds - enough to blow you off your spot quickly, but a godsend compared to what we were dealing with on Sunday and later Monday. We went to the NY side and fished around Valcour Island. I landed the only fish between the both of us, but it was a 18", 4.23lb smallmouth that I got dragging a football jig over a fairly unique structure, essentially a rocky shoal with smaller shoals on top of it.

 

On Thursday, we went to the south side of the sandbar, which is mostly shallow and weedy. We had to paddle out a ways before we could put the pedals down. I caught a 14.5" largemouth on a T-Rig and a large chain pickerel on a spinnerbait. I missed a few too, lost what may have been a decent one on a tube because I didn't set my drag and couldn't set the hook as a result and missed another one on a frog earlier. Overall, this was a decent spot.

 

On Friday, we explored a few islands on the north side of the sandbar. My fish finder battery died when we got to the first one, but I figure we must have pedaled at least 12 miles. The bite on the island was surprisingly dead - several guys in bass boats tried fishing the structure off of the islands and they gave up and left too. But the view here was one of the best I'd ever seen, and worth the trip just for that and the exploration factor alone. I finally landed a nice largemouth dragging a football jig on the shoreline of the main island and a pike bit me off right afterwards.

 

On Saturday, we did the War of 1812 Museum in Plattsburgh and had to go back to the store, and came home Monday.

 

I never got into a hot bite, but short of most of Friday, I didn't do terrible either.

 

I'm off to Crown Point next week for another week on Champlain. The boat launch at the campground is pretty ideal for our situation, nice and wide so we don't have to worry about blocking anyone out and it's also a narrower part of the lake so wind is a little bit easier to deal with. Last year I lost my prop on my second day out, so I'm hoping for no more screwups this year.

Bulging brownie! Thanks for the report.

That’s a monster for 18”!!! Well fed fish 

6 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

That’s a monster for 18”!!! Well fed fish 

This fish came right to my kayak then went down and pulled drag, set at 4+ lbs freely and went straight down. Then I fought it back up and it went down again. Repeat a few more times. From the fight, I was thinking I had maybe got something even larger.

 

Seriously, this smallmouth may be the Mike Tyson of smallmouth. Only a 4 but put up a lot more fight. Put up as much fight as this 38" pike I got a month ago, but that was on a crankbait with less drag.

Wow, 4.23lbs at only 18" is crazy fat for a summer smallmouth!  Out here a chunky 18" smallmouth weighs about 3lbs in the summer. That is really cool! The shape of that fish looks like a prespawn fish out here. What a tank!