The next event on the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series is at a place I’ve fished for several years. I’ve competed on Lake Champlain probably a dozen times, and this fishery never fails to impress.
This is a really deep lake with spots of over 400 feet in the midsection. Because of this, I think a lot of Champlain’s fish still have not been caught, which is hard to say nowadays. Typically, the main fishing pressure is in the north and south ends, so the midsection doesn’t get fished as much.
The north end offers everything a bass needs for every single transition throughout the year, whereas the midsection doesn’t offer that much habitat diversity. Even though there’s not much that an angler wants, there’s still a big biomass of smallmouth.
On the south end, the Ticonderoga area is known for its shallow largemouth habitat. It’s about a 70-mile run from Plattsburgh, so fishing Ti is a big commitment.
In years past, most guys fished the upper end of the lake, but 100% Ti will play this time around. That’s because we won’t be able to use forward-facing sonar in this event, so the weights are not gonna be what they could be.
Every time we go to Champlain, it seems like the fish are getting bigger. Being able to target them with LiveScope for eight hours versus not being able to — this time it’s gonna be like it used to be. Ti is going to play for that reason.
There’s also a good population of smallmouth that live in the deeper water down there. But with no forward-facing sonar, it will be harder to target the smallmouth, so Ti will be 95% largemouth.
One of the upsides of Champlain is you can get out of the wind in a lot of areas. That place is known for big waves, but there are a lot of areas where you can protect yourself and still fish an eight-hour tournament day.
On the other hand, if the fish are in some of the areas where you can’t get out of the wind, you’re in trouble. Another concern is making a long run in windy conditions. If you get on the fish down in Ticonderoga and you’re launching out of Plattsburgh, sometimes, you just can’t get there in a bass boat.
If you look back in history, this is probably the No. 1 lake where people are late to weigh-ins. You might be in the Inland Sea, and depending on the wind direction, it could be protected in there. Then you come out and start running down toward Plattsburgh, and it’s a whole different animal.
You’ll be in one area and it’s perfect, and you’ll go on the other side and it’s blowing 4- and 5-foot waves. Regardless of how the weather turns out, I think the event will be fun to watch because the guys will be working hard to catch ‘em.
Even without forward-facing sonar, I still think smallmouth will make up the majority of the weight. Back in the day, you’d go catch 16 to 17 pounds of smallmouth and then run docks and catch a 5-pound largemouth. This time, everybody is going to be doing that.
Up north, there are four or five really good largemouth areas, and they’re not big. Then you have Ticonderoga down south. After the first two days, I don’t know how much pressure these areas can take when the whole field is targeting largemouth.
This will be one of the most challenging tournaments we’ve had on Champlain, but that means the win will be that much more rewarding.
