Lake Champlain United - Forums

After a very unproductive LCI Derby with the waves making my daughter sick, I headed out solo in the rowboat early this morning.

The lake was smooth as glass, the sky was clear, and there was just 1 other fisherman at the launch. Very quiet unlike a week ago. Surface temp was about 62 and I sent down a FishHawk TD just clipping it to a lead core line and lowering it down. It was something like 55F at 25', 47F at 35', and 43F at 40'. Seems like the south Lake stratified quickly after all the wind finally stopped. So I set out 4 colors of lead on an inline planer board and 6 colors straight off the stern and rowed north. Sonar kept showing bait balls around 25 to 35 feet and a few big marks, but no bites for the 1st hour.

The first bite of the day hit the rainbow trout speedy shiner that was on the planer board. It wasn't pulling all that hard and it wasn't until disconnecting the planer that I saw something big jumping way out of the water 150 feet away and realized this was a good one ! The fish dove hard three times at the boat - I think it was looking for an outboard prop to tangle the line in - sorry, no prop on this boat. Turned out to be a beautiful steelhead with no lamprey marks, 6lb 6oz for a new PB.

Right after that, I tried putting the line back in but when I went to attach the planer something was already tugging on the line. That turned out to be a laker a little over 3 pounds.

No other fish for the rest of the morning, got out by 9 before it got too hot for this sort of activity (and my 1/2 gallon water jug leaked so I had zero water to drink, wasn't going to risk dehydration after a nice fish like that).

That is one beautiful steelhead

Talk about earning a trophy with hard work and dedication.

That is an awesome chunk of chrome!

Great read Dilly… really enjoyed the detail of the fight!

I am super impressed how you can troll with manual propulsion.......awesome job and awesome fish !

Such a pretty fish. Absolutely beautiful....Congratulations!

Nice fish. Worth the trip.

Way to go, Dilly! That's a beautiful fish. Congratulations on that hard-earned trophy.

Real nice fish and a great post. Thanks

Nice catch Meddie. You're doing better than most of us

Dude! That fish is like something out of a magazine, or a fishing show from the great lakes. James and I were taking about it before the little troll last Sunday, and your fish played a role in getting us all out on the water to try to find our own. We didn't, but, it was a nice relaxing morning picking away at lakers for Liam an I.

I keep saying it, and its still true. We've never boated one.

And to the possible future cold water fisherman like I once was, who was trying to learn how reading these forums, thinking I didn't have the gear to catch a fish like this: He caught it with 1 rod with leadcore line, 1 spoon, in a rowboat. I mean, that's some Tony Stark building his first Ironman suit out of scrap in a cave with a blowtorch stuff right there. Nice job man.

Thanks for the nice comments !

Really, trolling in a rowboat isn't as hard as it might seem. No need to figure out how to work or fix motors, downriggers, etc. for one thing. And maybe it spooks the fish less, being quiet.

Its a good time for me to say thanks to everyone on LCU who's helped so much with all the helpful advice and knowledge about coldwater fishing. This is a great site with friendly fisherman who help each other out all the time.

I've adapted a lot of what I've learned from everyone so it works with the rowboat, and I'm thinking of starting a "nonmotorized trolling" thread in the Trout and Salmon Tactics board to share techniques with others who are interested and have figured out their own methods... once I can get organized...

Beautiful!

Pretty Steelhead! And great story!

Awesome post!