Willsboro Lakers 2023

[hooks40]

We took our annual 3 day trip from this past Saturday through Tuesday. The weather was volatile to say the least but the fish were there, although not always willing. We found a good number of fish to the North, although the water had a distinct green tint to it. I'm not sure if that was just surface algae, but the fish did not feed well in it. Further south, the water was clearer and in Willsboro bay, the water was very clear. As always, our approach was jigging. We had 2 boats and 4 fisherman. On Saturday from noon to 7 we boated 23, but it took some traveling to find those that will bite. On Sunday, we dodged storms, got out late and finished early, but managed 41. Monday should have been our best day, but at noon we had 2 fish and could not see hardly any fish in the normal spots. By chance, we started looking shallower and found big numbers and they were hungry. Lost count at some point we had triples. Fish bit spoons, jigs, plastic. Leave it down there or reel it up, they were willing. The afternoon was epic. Big fish was about 12 pounds all the way down to 15". There was a high number of 10 lb fish. One thing that we noticed was that there were very few with lamprey marks and many of the fish were bright and younger looking. Tuesday morning was similar to Monday afternoon, but less fish, but they were still shallow biters.

A few questions about the green water...algae or runoff from the floods?? Have others experienced this? It was prevalent near Schuyler Island.

Already looking forward to next year!

[Red Barchetta]

We took our annual 3 day trip from this past Saturday through Tuesday. The weather was volatile to say the least but the fish were there, although not always willing. We found a good number of fish to the North, although the water had a distinct green tint to it. I'm not sure if that was just surface algae, but the fish did not feed well in it. Further south, the water was clearer and in Willsboro bay, the water was very clear. As always, our approach was jigging. We had 2 boats and 4 fisherman. On Saturday from noon to 7 we boated 23, but it took some traveling to find those that will bite. On Sunday, we dodged storms, got out late and finished early, but managed 41. Monday should have been our best day, but at noon we had 2 fish and could not see hardly any fish in the normal spots. By chance, we started looking shallower and found big numbers and they were hungry. Lost count at some point we had triples. Fish bit spoons, jigs, plastic. Leave it down there or reel it up, they were willing. The afternoon was epic. Big fish was about 12 pounds all the way down to 15". There was a high number of 10 lb fish. One thing that we noticed was that there were very few with lamprey marks and many of the fish were bright and younger looking. Tuesday morning was similar to Monday afternoon, but less fish, but they were still shallow biters.

A few questions about the green water...algae or runoff from the floods?? Have others experienced this? It was prevalent near Schuyler Island.

Already looking forward to next year!

Thanks for the report hooks40. My buddies actually fished the same areas on Monday, and nill! They said the water was pretty turbid as well in Willsboro Bay by Port Douglas, and had no luck jigging in it so they went east towards Schuyler and fished deeper water and nada/nothing all day. I've never been skunked on Champlain yet, but I've never seen entire trees drifting in 120' either so that day may well have been an exception to the rule. They also stayed too stationary and should have looked to different areas/water. Live and learn i guess!

[Play'n Hookey]

I fished Willsboro Bay today with no results . Fish were scattered but no takers . We tried from 20 to 130 ft and dumped the tackle box on them but no luck. We will head for Schuyler Island in the morning.

[Red Barchetta]

See you there in 3 hours!

[Dead lake]

Make sure you don’t kill them all from coming up from the deep, their not bass

[hooks40]

From my experience, some groups of fish are biters and others are not. Many jiggers use spot lock to stay on a group of fish, but if they are not biting after a few different lures and methods, it's time to move on. We don't have spot lock, so we depend on the drift to cover water effectively. We rarely fish less than 70 feet this time of year, but this year was an exception.

Oh, and water release your fish. Even taking them in for pictures makes it tough to release this time of year. We saw a group of guys in a Ranger who were doing OK, but they put every fish in the net and then the net in the bottom of the boat, then they took too many pictures. 2 floaters and they had trouble releasing every fish getting them to swim down. As with any fish, less stress is better.

Do you guys feel the off color water was run off?