It’s that time of year, when you look up and suddenly the Elite Series season is coming to a close. With only two events left, the northern swing is in full effect. A mere day and a half from now we’ll kick off the Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain, and then be just one quick stop away from wrapping this season up at the St Lawrence River next week.
We caught up with Austin Felix after the first day of official practice on Champlain to see what the lake is looking like, compared to 2021 when the Elites were last here and Felix finished 5th.
“I had an alright day,” said Felix. “Caught some decent fish but they definitely seem to be more pressured than they were.”
On his last visit, Felix rode a unique pattern, at least in part, all the way to Championship Sunday, catching big smallmouth off buoys.
“I don’t have a special thing figured out kind of like last time when I had that buoy deal dialed in. That’s kind of been beaten to death at this point. The fish that are still on that deal all have PHDs.”
Though the fish have gotten a little harder to catch this go round for Felix, the bites have been big.
“The fish are still healthy when you do catch them. I still think it’s going to take 18 a day to get a check.”
When the Elites were here in 2021, it was a full month earlier and took less than a 17-pound average across the first two days to make the 50 cut and fish on Day 3. Felix knows these waters extremely well, and is confident the weights will be better here after just one day of semi-tough fishing for him.
“Depending on how bad the wind is, I suspect it’ll take right around 80 pounds (to win), same as it always does.”
We’ll look more into the wind in a minute, but first let’s read between the lines a little. Though the average bass looks to be getting bigger, the max size per bass seems to be staying the same, according to Felix.
“Seems like in the local events it’s been taking between 21 and 22 to win most of the time. And it’s been taking 19 or better to Top 10. They’re healthy.”
When asked if the largemouth will play a big factor here this week, or if we should expect smallmouth to dominate, Felix had mixed opinions.
“I’m not going to do it, just because the smallmouth keep getting bigger and bigger here. There are so many 4- pound smallmouth swimming around now that it’s hard to compete with largemouth.”
Ticonderoga
Though largemouth are scattered around just about as much of this fishery as smallmouth, the largemouth bite is often associated with Ticonderoga, a section of the lake steeped in aquatic vegetation, and an hour drive (on a good day) from takeoff in Plattsburgh, New York.
“I do think Ti (Ticonderoga) is gonna play, assuming the weather doesn’t hurt the guys, just simply because Ti is a hundred times better when the water is high than it is when the water is low.”
When the Elites were here last, Champlain was significantly lower than it is today. This time around, due to massive amounts of rainfall locally, the lake is, “3 or 4 feet higher than it was when we here last time.”
“If people want to do it, I guarantee you there’s fish to be caught down there. It won’t be like two years ago where everybody that goes down there does terrible.”
For the anglers that do decide to make the run, there will be a wide variety of submerged and topped out vegetation available, as well as other cover.
“There’s always that milfoil that you either frog or flip and there’s also always a lot of hard cover that you can fish when the water gets up.”
Smallmouth Fishing
Felix predicted we’ll see most anglers targeting smallmouth in this event, using the usual fare when it comes to baits.
“All your standard LiveScope baits. The drop shot and ned rig will do a lot of work for a lot of people. Jerkbait and topwater for the shallower guys. Probably get some fish on a spybait and a little swimbait. They’re eating shad right now pretty hard.”
Though Felix believes there are still plenty of fish shallow, he’s thinking that the big bite will come deeper here this go around, with the tournament landing a full month later into the summer.
“I’ve mostly been fishing deep so far. I haven’t really sampled much of the shallow stuff, with the exception of a few shallow mooring buoys. Anything less than 20 (feet) is shallow here for me. That 6- to 14- feet range, there’s still a lot of fish up there too.”
Even though Felix is fishing in relatively deep water, he’s finding that the bass here on Champlain are becoming increasingly wary, like we’ve seen on other fisheries throughout the country.
The increase in fishing pressure as well as the unprecedented advancements in technology the last few years has the bass on edge, listening for pings and looking for serial numbers before biting down on anything.
“I clicked my (Lowrance) Active Target out to 140 (feet) today just to make sure I could see them pretty far away. Once they get under the boat they get pretty tricky.”
Weather Report
Situated in a straight line north to south, Lake Champlain can get down right nasty on a windy day. And the wind on Thursday, Day 1 of this event, is predicted at the moment to blow 10- to 15- miles per hour.
“I think the first day of the tournament it looks like it’s gonna get a little squirrelly. And it’s supposed to blow out of the south, which is the worst. Cause then it has everything from Ti all the way up to pickup speed.”
If the forecast holds, the wind will probably scrap the plans of any anglers looking to make the long run down to Ticonderoga. But, Felix is hopeful the forecast will improve as practice winds down.
“There could be 5-footers rolling across the face off the dock if it’s bad, but we’ll see. We’ve got a couple days. At least Thursday you’ll probably still be able to get around, it’ll just take you a little time and make it a little tougher fishing.”
Friday, for the time being, looks like it’ll be a wet one, with a high chance of rain. The winds are forecasted (as of Tuesday afternoon) to blow 10- to 15- miles per hour on Day 2 as well, out of the southwest. Saturday and Sunday look more favorable.
Will the weather break enough for a few anglers to make the long run to Ticonderoga? Will largemouth play a factor from some other patch of shoreline along Champlain? Or will smallmouth dominate here this time?
“I haven’t found anything new yet. We’ll figure it out as we go.”
We leave Felix still looking to figure them out, as the stage is being set for stop number eight of the 2023 season. The Dakota Lithium Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain kicks off on Thursday at 7 AM EDT. Tune in to bassmaster.com to catch all the action.
