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We headed back to Champlain once again to try our luck at a few more salmon & trout this morning. Despite the bad weather forecast, I thought it would be worthwhile and decided to go never the less. With rain showers, high S winds and temps not expected to surpass the low 50’s, it was going to be a real challenge today! Our arrival was met with rain as we headed out and it wasn’t too warm either. Trolling in this crap without an enclosed cabin is really unpleasant, to say the least! I’d like to say that it was worth the early arrival to the lake, but we went over 2 hours before the first reel fired. The good news is that we did lock up and were finally on our way to getting into fish. We had to work hard for each and every bite we got and it was the deep lines that produced the best in the beginning. Three out of the first four fish came on a line that was running 10 to 14 feet due to the lack of aggression on the part of the fish. I was marking them plenty, but they just weren’t active. I believe, it was when the rain finally stopped and the skies began to brighten that we started to have a little more action. It was still very overcast, but at least we weren’t in misery anymore! I knew that the fish were coming alive when one of the high lines went off and another salmon came aboard. We finally had a limit of salmon and even a bonus 3-pound brown trout in the livewell. Every time we hooked a fish, I returned to the same area afterwards and monopolized by getting into a few more. We never really had a double header, but we did catch bottom once and while clearing the lines to go back for it, hooked into another salmon. By one or two o’clock, the sun began to show and I knew things were going to change for the better. We had the same show going with other reels firing and each time we turned and went back, we got into more salmon again. I was rather disappointed that my favourite 5 weight fly reel had never gone off and tried everything to get it to go. I ran the line close to the shore on sharp turns only to have the opposite side lock up. I even changed lures to see if this would help, but the opposite rod was getting all the action. It was definitely a mystery as this rod usually accounts for 50% or more of the hook ups on a daily basis. Well, it finally went off and Christiane was into a bigger fish this time. It turned out to be a brown trout of 3.5 pounds and another bonus brownie went into the livewell. This was the start of something good as the next 3 fish also came from this line as well. When a deep line got hit and line began to scream from the reel, Christiane thought it was bottom once again. She was however into something much heavier that usual but unfortunately brought a northern to the boat. Talk about a disappointment! We trolled for a little while longer catching a few more fish but decided to call it quits with the 20 to 30 knot S winds blowing strong. It was finally nice to see very few boats around me and I was able to troll the patterns required to fool these fish into hitting. I don’t think that the other fishermen did very well as I never saw any of them fighting any fish. I hope at least that they were able to get into something, as there’s plenty of salmon out there to be caught. Despite the foul weather and conditions today, I think we fended fairly well with over a dozen fish landed and another 5 or 6 either lost or missed all together. It was still a great day on the water!!

Guided Fishing!
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