I fished with Dave & Jeff today on Lake Champlain for Landlocked Salmon. It was a chilly morning with the air barely above freezing when we arrived. I don’t think it ever reached 48 degrees by the end of the day and with the wind from the N/NW once again, it felt more like 38. Water temps were between 39.5 and 42.5 degrees, depending where you were. I thought it was going to be a great day when Dave hooked into a fish while letting the line out on the first rod. This was a first as it wasn’t even two minutes into the day and we had our first hook up! What an initiation into this technique as a beautiful bonus brown trout came to the net. It was quite a while before the second rod fired and Jeff was into the first Salmon of the day. It gave him quite a fight as the fish tangled into another fly line during the battle. Luckily, we were able to land it even with the mess that occurred! A couple more fish managed to get off shortly afterwards due to short strikes. I think they were lightly taking the tail of the baits as some of them just came off during the battle. No doubles today, but still good fishing nevertheless! Five Salmon & one brown were landed with a few others lost and some short strikes. All in all about 10 or 12 possible fish with about half landed. With this cooler water, it’s not uncommon to have a day like this. Warmer weather is ahead of us for this week and the fishing will only continue to get better as the water warms. Multiple hookups and double-digit days are soon to come and I will be there to take advantage of this. It’s “Niche Season” and the Ouananiche Salmon are coming alive with the water temps on the rise. The next couple of days will be the best so far with sunshine and 60 degrees forecasted for both of them. Hopefully someone will take advantage of this weather pattern and experience some of the best Salmon of the year. Tight Lines to all!!!

I took advantage of the amazing weather we had this past week and prepped my boat for springtime Salmon on Lake Champlain. This was to be our first trip this season and it was about 2 weeks earlier than last year. I managed to get on the water around 10:00 after the long drive to the lake. No need arriving too early at this time of the year with the water temps so cold! We had an air temp that was heading towards the low 50’s and a water temp that ranged between 37 and 43 degrees. Winds were out of the N/NW at 15 knots with a good chop on the water all day. Unfortunately with this wind direction, it was difficult to find clear water & troll with fly rods. Visibility was definitely going to be a concern! It took over 2 hours before we had our first strike and Christiane finally got the skunk out of the boat as I netted our first Salmon. It was a little scarred up from what looked like a previous pike attack. Unfortunately for the pike, I would be dining on him and into the livewell he went! We continued to fish until about 3:30 with only one other salmon on, but lost it before the rod could be removed from the holder. A tiny perch and a few other strikes were all she wrote for this first day out! I had covered lots of water to only be rewarded with one fish for my efforts. Oh well, that’s fishing! I think the fish were definitely in the areas I fished, but visibility played a big part in our end results. I will be back out again this week and expect much better fishing if the water clears up. Average days will soon see 8 or more salmon and some brown trout coming aboard during the course of the day. Hopefully under prime conditions I can have another day of more than 20 fish caught, like last year! If anyone is interested in trying this, I have plenty of available days open before I head to another lake in May for Bass. I also have openings for the months of May & June when average daily catches of Smallmouth see upwards of 100 bass for 2 people. Give me a call at 514-696-1741 for more information or a day on the water. Tight Lines to All!! No pics today but here’s one from last season!

I headed down to the states to fish for steelhead once again after a tough 4 day trade show in Montreal. I needed to set the hooks into some chrome and thought the fishing would be good. The weather was cold on the first morning, so I planned on arriving by midday to hopefully fish with little freeze up on the rod. Within 15 minutes I was tight to a fresh 10-pound male that fought like a 20 pounder. Eventually, I was able to beach him and release the fish back into the river. A short while after that, the float went under & I had another bruiser on again. This time the fight made the last fish seem like a wimp! The battle was to last over ten minutes until I finally managed to land a beautiful 13-pound hen steelie. She was chrome and full of eggs for the spring spawn. I would have loved to get a picture of her, but due to the cold temps, decided to release her back quickly. She lay in the calmer water for almost 15 minutes before she swam off, unharmed. A smaller rainbow of 3 pounds was landed soon after and I decided to relocate. One more fish of about 5 pounds was hooked, but lost soon after and I decided to call it quits for the day. On day two I had the pleasure of fishing with Rahe, who had never caught a steelhead on a float rod. After a short lesson on the do’s & don’ts, he was ready to actually fish with an egg sac. Controlling the line and fishing with the bail open was a little tough at first, but the drifts were starting to look good. He finally had the float go down and managed to set the hook into a screamer. This fish was so big and fresh that she just headed for the lake without any thoughts of slowing down. I had to grab the rod from him and run down river just to get some line back onto the reel. Eventually the fish just came off! It was a big fish of about 15 pounds as I saw her bust the surface twice during the battle. I told him that this was not the size of fish he wanted to begin with and that it would have been tough for anyone to have controlled. We relocated to another area hoping for some more action and Rahe was tight to another chrome bullet. After a short battle, I netted the fish of about 4.5 pounds. It looked like a drop back with its torpedo shape. It was skinny, but silver! After a late lunch, we hit another area before the day was ended. Rahe was starting to become more comfortable with this technique as he hooked into another decent fish. He thought it was just small until he actually caught a glimpse of the fish. Another chromer of at least five pounds was soon to be released after a quick pic. Rahe finally had the confidence needed to hook into two more fish before we called it quits. He landed one of them and lost the other soon after he hooked it. Too bad I thought, it would have made him 4 for 5 if he could have held on to the last one. All in all, a great learning day for him and some fish as an added bonus! The third day was a right off as I never made a decent drift in the 30 minutes or so that I spent fishing. It was so windy and cold that everything was a chore just to make a cast. I spent more time in the truck driving around looking for decent water to try. By mid day, I called it quits! Strange weather for the three days I spent fishing, but well worth it!!

The weather finally warmed up and off I went to Steelhead fish once more! Four days on the river would surely be enough time to quench my thirst for these silver bullets, I thought. I had the misfortune of breaking a $400 float rod on the first day and had to buy another one in order to continue fishing. At $150, it would make a good spare and off I went back fishing. First cast out, I was into another fish, but this time it was a brown trout of about 5 pounds. Nice way to test a new rod I thought and continued fishing. By the end of the day I had landed 2 browns and 3 steelhead, up to 7 pounds. Day 2 proved to be the same with another 2 browns and 3 more steelies added to the total. Both days saw the weather quite pleasant with little to no wind and air temps in the mid to upper 40’s. On the third morning, we began with temps over 50 and winds around 20 mph. I was going to be meeting Dave & Jeff around 10:00, so I thought I would fish for a couple of hours before they arrived. Within 15 minutes I had hooked into a brown trout of about 4 pounds and realized that everything was changing. The air temps were dropping quickly and the winds were really getting stronger. I took a drive and spent about 90 minutes just looking for places that we would be able to fish. The winds eventually got up to gusts of over 70 mph making over 90% of the river impossible to fish. I would have my work cut out for me trying to initiate these two into steelhead fishing. By the time they got to fish, the temps had fallen to 28 degrees and the winds were at full strength. I think the wind chill was about 20 below! We spent over three hours in one area that had the best protection from Mother Nature, but came up just cold. I decided that we needed to warm up and headed back to the truck and Dunkin Donuts. We fished for another hour or so in the second area and had three hookups only to have Jeff land his first steelhead of about 2 pounds. Dave had a good one on, but unfortunately lost it when the hook pulled out. Tough day to say the least! The next morning we met for breakfast at 6:30 in a freezing cold blizzard. Air temps were a chilly 8 degrees and wind chill had to be more like 30 below! We met back at 8:00 and headed out in slightly better weather when the snow & wind calmed down. The ice freeze up on the guides was so bad that we had to warm the rods up as well as our bodies a couple of times during the day. Dave managed to land a small rainbow around 2 pounds, but lost a couple of beauties in this miserable weather. With no fault of his, they just came off! At least one of them was over 10 pounds and as fresh as they come. Too bad he didn’t get at least one of them to the net for a picture! The weather should begin to warm back up again soon and I will be back out once more. These steelhead are just too addictive to not want more!

With the unbelievably warm weather pattern we have had, I decided to head back out for steelhead in the U.S. For three days I fished in temperatures between 50 & 60 degrees. If this isn’t Global Warming, I don’t know what is! The snow is all but gone and the rivers are spring like in flow. Unfortunately the water temperatures drop when all this is in motion, causing the fish to sometimes become more lethargic than usual. It’s sort of like putting ice into a drink to make it colder! The first day Jim & I had to travel plenty in order to get the 15 or so hits we had. Most of them were smaller than we had hoped for, but fun never the less. The largest fish landed would have been a brown trout over 5 pounds. As usual, the largest steelhead never gave us a chance for a photo as they managed to get off somewhere along the fight! On the second day I fished with Tom & Jim and the fishing was even tougher with Tom landing his first steelhead minutes before dark. A few browns were caught during the day and several hits were missed along the way as well. Jim had a brief encounter with a screamer that schooled him immediately! The third day had me making even more changes as we decided to take a long walk to areas that are usually less pressured. After about fifteen minutes into the fishing day, Tom locked into a real giant of a steelhead. This fish would have gone close to 15 pounds if we ever actually landed her. Unfortunately she was dime bright & full of energy and had other intentions. I had to travel a long way downstream with Tom to try and gain back some of the line she was spooling from the reel, but eventually the leader just gave out. Minutes after Tom was back fishing, he was into another fish and tight to battle once again. Another big steelhead and seconds later, gone! He finally managed to land one but it was rather small by comparison. This went on for the next 45 minutes with Tom hooking into about 7 or so fish, all chrome. I managed to get in a few casts during this ordeal and landed a brown trout & lost another steelhead. The rest of the day was spent traveling up river to try and intercept some of the fish we battled unsuccessfully. Hindsight should have had us stay put and work the area completely as we never touched another fish for the balance of the day. Migrating fish are always tough to locate and with the low, colder water lately, even harder. All in all, it was a good trip, but the landing ratio could have been somewhat better with most of the fish hooked, getting off. I can’t wait to get back and get even!