Grinding Away

Craig & Herm were back once again for another day chock full of surprises. They had a difficult time on Champlain yesterday and were really looking foreword to battling some active smallmouth this morning. We started out with cold temps of just 33 degrees when we launched and they never really warmed to more than 45 throughout the day. The winds were definitely better than their previous trip when we had 3 footers and were N/E around 10 knots today. This made drifting a challenge with the current slower than the wind and I had to improvise with a few tricks of my own just to get some movement. Overcast skies were also upon us for most of the day and the water temps were hovering just below 52 degrees when they made their first cast. Within a couple of minutes, Craig was locked up and I knew it was going to be one of those days! Herm followed up not long after and they were both starting to get into them when Craig set into what seemed like the bottom. After just a couple of seconds, the line went limp and we both knew that one had teeth. I won’t say that the fish came easy today as we had to really work for them and stay on our toes with the bites. Several hits were quite difficult to detect and many a missed fish was had in the process. Although there weren’t any real giants today, there were some real good ones of over 4 pounds landed. The largest fish of the day though would have to be the walleye that registered just under 6 pounds. We never really got into the mother load of bass but we caught some fish in every area we stopped. We literally picked at them all day long! Tougher fishing than usual but still a productive day overall!!