Lake Champlain - April, May  (and July) 2025

It looks like our Spring trip has migrated East to bigger water since we've really tried to learn how to troll successfully for Trout and Salmon. I am sure we will manage to get back to Middle Saranac for a spring trip at some point, but for now it's Lake Champlain.

We started early this year with a trip in April and invited my youngest and recent fishing enthusiast Brendan aka The Mountain Goat along. Of course April in upstate NY especially on the big water can be cold, and it was! I don't recall the exact surface water temperature on the lake, but I want to say it was like 38. Brrr!

We trolled a previously known successful spring location and Brendan managed to land his first lake trout and a pretty nice one too.

We made the pass one more time and then Lady Champlain decided she did not want us on the water that day, the wind picked up considerably and made it un-fishable in the 17 ft. Grumman. So .... what do you do when you can't fish?

You help out the local economy

It was good to get on the water and we vowed to make it back in May when it was just a little warmer.

May 2025

A trip was planned for May and before long we were back on the water. No Mountain Goat, but Isla came along.  Since it was still very early in the month, the water and air were still pretty cold but the lake was a little more cooperative and let us fish for a while. We trolled the same location as previous trips in hopes that our pattern would work and the fish would be there. We didn't mark a ton of fish or large bait balls but we managed a few nice Lakers.

Isla doesn't know what to think about this new species of Pike.

Captain is on the board, you can see how calm the lake was this day.

We managed to catch a few more so it was a good day but the action was definitely slower than we've experienced here before in May. I attribute that to still being a little early in the month. The water temps were still pretty consistent throughout the water column so the fish were not really concentrated at any depth. The bait hadn't really moved in to this bay that we were fishing yet either.

All in all a good day on the water as usual however.

July 2025

So our friend from down south informed us that he was going to be in New York for almost a week for a wedding in July, so of course we had to try to squeeze in a fishing trip. We decided on a bay more south than we usually fish to be close to the Marina where we could stay on the sailboat. This location was also just a bit closer to home and easier to manage on a quickly planned trip like this. There's a spot that is known to hold Salmon that we wanted to try so before long we were headed north once again.

Our lodging for the night with a great view

Well, as you can see we managed to catch a salmon, or two. We fished hard but the action was very slow this day. We are still still learning.