New York trout fishing

Well, it's that time of the year again, the interim period between the ice fishing season, and early May, when sport fishing species like pike, re-open for fishing here. With the exception of carp and a few other species of "rough" fish like gar and bowfin, there isn't much interesting fishing going on in the immediate Montreal region right now.

As such, I generally like to target different species of trout and char in April. These species prefer cool to cold water, which make casting or trolling for them quite effective. Additionally, our neighbors to the South are quite keen on stocking them into their lakes and rivers in large numbers. Being that Both New York and Vermont are close enough to drive to for a day trip, and that both states stock many thousands of trout into their waterways, the drive down is usually well worth it, as long as the weather and fish cooperate with our plans.

For my first trout outing of the spring, I caught up with my friend Mike. We last fished together for muskies during the fall, so it was nice spending the day together on the water after a long winter. We headed down to Lake Champlain, to fish for lake trout. Incidentally, lake trout are actually members of the char family, and they thrive in near freezing water temperature better than most of their trout cousins. Either way, trolling for them right after ice out is a lot simpler than during the summer, as they are mostly up in less than 20 feet of water, gorging themselves on smelt and alewives in Lake Champlain. Being that Lake Champlain is bordered by both New York and Vermont, both states stock the lake, and as such, both states have a reciprocal license agreement, meaning that either license will let you fish most of the shared basin of the lake, which would be our target fishing area. A daily fishing license in New York is $10 for non residents, Vermont is $21 for the same, so I obviously opted to pay New York.

Lake Champlain is well over 100 miles long, over 10 miles wide, with a maximum depth of about 400 feet. Big water by anyone's standards, and with a South wind gusting over 20 km/h, the waves and white caps made for a rough ride out to our spot. Mike's 20 foot Lund is equipped with suspension seats, which made the simulated rodeo a little easier on our lower backs. On a lake that big, you better be with someone that really knows what they are doing, and has the proper boat, equipment and experience to effectively put us onto some good fishing. Aka, Mike.

After a good 1/2 hour or so of a bumpy ride, we finally got set up to start trolling. Plan was to set the Minn Kota trolling motor on auto pilot and cruise control, in order for us to be able to both fight fish while running lines without anyone at the helm controlling the boat. Unfortunately, the big waves hitting the bow made the trolling motor go berserk, so he had to steer, as we trolled a few lines running crankbaits and spoons, some with the help of planer boards to keep a good spread on our lines.

After about 1/2 hour of nothing, Mike decided to run down to the end of our planned pass, and try a  deeper pass on the way back up. As well, the troll would be smoother with the waves coming from behind us. Sure enough, we got the auto pilot set this time, and the rest of the day was a breeze.

It took less than 2 minutes for the the first hit, landed my first laker of the season. 

Being that lake trout are extremely fishy, and quite polluted in Lake Champlain, the plan was to release them all. After a quick release, I got another hit, this time, the lake trout was a lot bigger.

At around 10 lbs or so, it ended up being the biggest of the day.

For a lake the size and depth of Lake Champlain, one would think there was a good potential for lake trout to grow very big, but in reality, the lake record under 20 lbs. Despite having caught many dozens of lake trout there over the years, my 2 biggest ones were both in the 12 lbs range.

Now, my hope was to beat my previous best during a hot bite, but that didn't happen. What did happen, was non stop action on every pass we made. in about 5 hours or so of fishing, we landed a whopping 20 lake trout, most in the 5 to 8 lbs range. Probably about 125 lbs or so in total, which made for pretty much non stop, rod bending action.

By far, the most productive day I've ever had on Lake Champlain. Well worth my $10 daily fishing license fee to New York state.

For my second April trip to New York 6 days later, I chose to target stocked trout in the Adirondacks region of the state. New York has a good trout stocking program in many of it's Northern counties, including the rivers in Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties, which are typically where I focus my efforts, being that they are the closest to home for day trips of this sort.

As in most of my previous outings to New York's trout rivers, I went along with Jimmy, to wade the  frigid rivers. We fished 4 different spots over a good 5 hours or so, 3 of which contained brown trout. Rainbows were supposed to be stocked as well, but seems they are a bit delayed for some reason. One of our spots proved the most productive, with us landing about a dozen trout, and a couple fallfish. My last 2 fish of the day, were the biggest, caught them casting a brand new #4 blue fox spinner, before I eventually lost the lure to a snag.

The feisty brown trout made for some good fun using medium light in strong current, had my drag singing nicely. Kept some for the table, hope to cook up a fish fry over the next 24 hours.