This week we are on Lake Champlain for the eighth Elite Series tournament of the year. Our host city this week is the peaceful little town of Plattsburg, New York. It’s funny when most people, myself included, think of New York we normally think about the big city hustle and bustle but honestly these villages in upstate New York have become some of my favorite places we visit. Not to mention the fishing is absolutely phenomenal up here. Let’s talk about how I think this tournament will shake out this week.
This is my first tournament ever on Champlain so it’s been fun to try and find them on this monster of a fishery. I did come and pre-practice here a little over a month ago before the official off limits period started and I’m glad I did. I don’t do a whole lot of pre-practicing normally but on a place this vast it can really prove helpful when tournament time comes around. The fish were still in full spawn mode when I was here then but from what I can tell most all of that is done now.
The big key this week is deciding whether to fish for smallmouth, largemouth, or a mixture of the two. This is one of those places where you can make some extremely long runs and gamble big. If you’ve ever heard anything at all about Champlain you’ve probably heard mention of Ticonderoga where historically a lot of tournaments have been won. Undoubtedly there will be a few guys go there this week in search of a big wad of largemouth that they can have all to themselves. Count me out of that equation. I’ll be one of the guys that stays up north, closer to the launch site, and maximizes my fishing time. I plan on mixing it up spending some time on smallmouth and largemouth. Actually a lot of the places I plan on fishing I feel like I could catch either species at any time which is a plus in my eyes. Largemouth obviously grow bigger than the smallmouth do so the best case scenario would be to catch a really good “kicker” largemouth at some point throughout the day.
Fish will be caught a lot of different ways this week as this lake has about any type of available cover you could ask for. Grass, docks, bridges, rocks, wood, all of the above will play a role in this one. I plan on having several different options handy for the many different situations I will encounter. One technique I plan to spend some time doing though is flipping scattered grass in 6-10 feet of water. This is something I learned on Lake Guntersville and I’ve had success with it on most of these northern lakes with good largemouth populations. Flipping the scattered stuff is different than flipping actual mats of grass and it sometimes takes longer to find the fish because it all looks the same but the rewards can be great. My plan is to go do this once I have a decent limit in the boat to try and catch that all important “kicker”.
For flipping the scattered stuff, I start with the MHX-FP-936. This rod is 7’9″ and has all the power I need to get a big one coming my way in that thick grass. Pair it up with a high-speed reel spooled up with 60-pound Vicious No-faid braid. On the business end I use a one ounce tungsten weight, a 4/0 Mustad 3x Grip Pin Max flipping hook, and a small, compact creature bait.
As much as I enjoy being up here in New York I’m hoping this approach will earn me $10,000 and an extra day or two around here.