Those of you who have followed my blog know that I love fishing on Lake Champlain. Everyone should fish it at least once in their life. All the same, as America’s sixth largest lake, it may be a bit daunting the first time you visit. Below, you’ll find a collection of resources available to help you go fishing on Lake Champlain.
If I’m missing a resource or you’d like your website added to this list, please send me an email and I’d be glad to add it.
Since this will be a long article, here are some links to jump to what you want:
- Fishing Forums
- Websites and Blogs
- Facebook Groups
- YouTube Channels and Vlogs
- Books
- Maps and Fishing Spot Guides
- Charter Captains
- Past Tournament Results
- Tackle Shops
- Other/Miscellaneous
Fishing Forums
Some of the best places to find information about fishing Lake Champlain are fishing forums. In them, you’ll often find fishing reports for specific areas and times of year as well as recommendations on tactics and lures. I’ve found the below to either be active today, or at least archived with very good information from the past. If you know of a forum that is either active or has a useful history, please let me know.
- Lake Champlain United Forums – Quite an established forum with 1000’s of topics to use as a resource for fishing Lake Champlain. There is a lot of information about most species the lake has, with a particularly active salmon/lake trout community. There’s also a nice “share a ride” forum that helps you find new friends to fish with.
- Fishing Lake Champlain Forums – Another long-established forum with 1000’s of topics on fishing Lake Champlain. There are plenty of fishing reports and more specific information to be found, however the forum activity seems to have died down lately. No matter – there’s still a ton of archived posts to learn from and likely many people checking in from time to time if you happen to have a question.
- VTBass Forums – There’s still a few guys who are active. The main draw of this forum is most of the folks concentrate on the southern end of the lake. Many launch from Larrabee’s (across from Ticonderoga) or further south at Benson’s Landing. I’ve found this to be a great resource for fishing that end of the lake.
- Bass Resource’s Northeast Bass Fishing Sub-forum – This isn’t a forum devoted to Lake Champlain but as one of the larger bass fishing communities out there, you can find several posts about it if you dig around. This is also a good bet for finding some lakes near Champlain in case the south wind has made life unbearable!
Websites and Blogs
There are several anglers who either maintain or once maintained a website or blog devoted to fishing on Lake Champlain. Again, even the stuff that hasn’t been updated in awhile is a useful historical record. Ever keep a fishing journal? I’ll bet you were glad for anything you wrote, even if it was years past. Here are the websites and blogs that I’m familiar with, but as always, if I’m missing something, let me know.
Note that these are websites devoted to the lake – not websites that happen to have an article about the lake. You can find those in Periodicals further below.
- Captain Mick Maynard’s website www.lakechamplainangler.com has a number of interesting articles on it in addition to information about booking trips with his charter service. For example, he has written articles about northern pike and smallmouth bass, as well as a some hints for when to visit the lake.
- Captain Howard Hammonds’ www.champlainbass.com isn’t updated as much as it used to be, but it still has a number of great fishing reports and articles from years past that you can refer to as a resource for your next visit to Lake Champlain.
- New York Department of Environmental Conservation has significant resources about fishing Lake Champlain including shore access information, boat launches, and accessible angler sites. They also have an opportunity to participate in different studies such as a diary program for smelt, lake trout, and salmon anglers.
- Likewise, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department maintains a website with some information about the northern end of the lake.
- My website also has a section devoted to Lake Champlain fishing reports that you can access here.
Facebook Groups
As of writing, there are a number of Facebook groups available where you can quickly get information and see fishing reports. It may well be that these are now the new “fishing forums” of the future. There are many groups dedicated to this lake, but here are some of the more active/larger ones. If you’re trying to grow a group and want it included, please send me an email.
- Lake Champlain Bass Fishing. Focuses on bass fishing though there are plenty of conversations that spring up about everything else the lake has to offer.
- Fishing 802. Not strictly speaking exclusive to Lake Champlain, but plenty of this area code borders the lake. A very robust group with high membership and fishing reports/photos.
- Lake Champlain Weather Conditions and Fishing Reports. Created to allow people a way to share ice safety conditions, this group also features many fishing reports.
- Lake Champlain Forecasts/Ice Reports. Another group that tries to help people understand what the weather actually is as opposed to what the weather channel says it is.
- Lake Champlain Hardwater Club. A Facebook group with a focus on ice fishing on Lake Champlain.
YouTube Channels and Vlogs
There are several anglers out there who are posting video resources of fishing Lake Champlain to YouTube. One nice thing about this is that often they’re hard-pressed to hide where they’re fishing! Many guys will go out of their way not to show background shots on photos that give away their honey holes. This is hard to do on video, so you might get extra clues!
While this media is ever expanding, here’s a few particularly useful videos that I’ve found. You just need to go into their channel to see what else they have. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to their channel. That will encourage them to keep posting more stuff that can help you!
- Outdoor Passion has a large number of videos for fishing Lake Champlain, including this great video of jigging for Lake Trout with Captain Maynard. I have a charter booked to do just this in a couple of months and can’t wait!
- Here’s an interesting YouTube podcast with Captain Matt Trombley discussing the fishery.
- Here’s another good video with Captain Matt Trombley, this time helping a video production team catch some northern pike. You’ll also note what I mean about videos not hiding the shoreline. There’s some pretty distinctive architecture on some of the lake houses!
- The 2020 Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain video is available on YouTube as well. You can see what the best of the best were throwing that week.
Books
Remember those things called books? I sure do. I still love reading (and writing) them! Books are the ultimate resource, so I’ve spent much time trying to find the different books that talk about fishing Lake Champlain. Unfortunately, there aren’t many to begin with, and some are out of print. At least you’ll know what you need to look for on e-Bay.
- Lake Champlain Bass Fishing Guide by Don McKee – This book is out of print and extremely hard to find, so you might want to set up an e-Bay alert for it and “Buy it Now” as soon as it’s available. This graced my dad’s coffee table for years and I grew up reading through it. It claims to be “Book I” though I’ve yet to find any others. It covers the southern end of the lake, from Westport to Whitehall.
- Bass Fishing 101: Lake Champlain by Dale D. Brown – There are still a select few websites offering this book today. I’d grab yours while you can (I just bought two more). This book covers the entirety of Lake Champlain from South Bay up to Canada and offers a paragraph or two worth of tips of pretty much every bay, cove, and creek along the way.
- Good Fishing in the Adirondacks: From Lake Champlain to the Streams of Tug Hill by Dennis Aprill. Written by an outdoor columnist for the Plattsburgh Press Republican, this book covers a number of different fishing spots on Champlain as well as lesser-known fishing holes around it.
- While not specifically written about Lake Champlain per say, most of the stories in my book, Fishing with Kids: A Parent’s Guide, take place on the lake, so there are a few hints for fishing it.
Maps and Fishing Spot Guides
There are a few companies that offer fishing maps for Lake Champlain. Here are the ones I’m aware of, as well as links to help you buy them. I’d recommend picking these up. They’re much more convenient for scouring over than a phone. Some are even waterproof so you can bring them on the boat.
- Lake Champlain North Detailed Fishing Map – A waterproof map from Fishing Hot Spots that has good tips for people new to the lake. This and the next two maps are a handy resource for anyone planning a fishing trip to Lake Champlain, as it cuts down on a lot of the guesswork.
- Lake Champlain Central Detailed Fishing Map – Another waterproof map that deals with the central sectors of the lake and all the fine fishing it has to offer.
- Lake Champlain South Detailed Fishing Map – The same deal as the first two, but this time for the southern end of the lake, including the vaunted Ticonderoga region.
- While not technically a “fishing map,” the Lake Champlain Atlas of Navigational Charts can be used to find some interesting underwater humps and reefs to fish.
- If you prefer an online experience, much of these navigational charts can be found on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chart locator.
Lake Champlain Fishing Charter Captains
Fishing charter captains are a living, breathing (sometimes talking) resource about fishing Lake Champlain. Here are the various folks offering fishing trips out on the Lake. If you are a charter captain on the lake and don’t see your name here, please email me and I’ll be sure to add you as well as a link to your website. I’m not leaving anyone out on purpose!
- Captain Mick Maynard of www.lakechamplainangler.com (and, if you’re sick of hard water in winter, also of Florida’s Largemouthcentral.com). Captain Mick and I have been fishing together for over a decade now across several states. He’s a great charter captain and one I can’t speak highly enough of. We met when my wife and I were on our honeymoon and he took us out for a charter. We caught every from largemouth and smallmouth bass, northern pike, and even lake trout in eight hours! You can normally find him fishing out of Plattsburgh, NY though he’ll come south a bit for lake trout now and then.
- Sure Strike Charters, LLC. Though I’ve never had the pleasure of fishing with Captains Brian or Paul Dunkling, their website is filled with testimonials from happy anglers who have. They seem to offer two types of boats, a larger one designed for trolling and a smaller boat for bass and pike trips. They’re based out of Shelbourne, VT, which is a nice town to visit and has plenty to do after the charter.
- Captain Mike Tarasavage of iFishLakeChamplain.com is another captain I’ve yet to meet, but I’m familiar with his charters from years of following various Facebook feeds. I’ve only heard good things. Per his website, he will take you fishing for any species, but specializes in lake trout. He’s based out of Plattsburgh, NY.
- Fish N Rigg Charters, operated by Captain Bill Gregorek might be a good option for someone with smaller kids/spouses who aren’t too crazy about “the elements.” He fishes off of a 31′ Silverton Flybridge equipped with its own head and plenty of room to get out of the weather. This is going to limit you to fishing for lake trout, salmon, and rainbow trout, but if that’s what you’re looking for, give the captain a call to book a trip based out of Charlotte, Vermont.
- Captain Randy’s Relax-N-Reel Fishing Charters out of West Chazy, NY offers cold and warm water species fishing charters on Champlain as well as seasonal (read: winter) trips in south Florida. He has a few boats to choose from depending on what you’re fishing for and your creature comfort needs.
- Captain Matt Trombley of 3rd Alarm Charters is a very popular choice. He’s quite active on various Facebook groups and has a strong following. Having honed his craft over thirty years of fishing Lake Champlain, Captain Trombley offers trolling, drift boat trips, casting trips, and ice fishing adventures. This service is based out of Vergennes, VT.
- Cloud Nine Charters and its captain, Obe White, offers a unique twist to fishing charters on Lake Champlain. While you can get the standard lake trout and salmon excursion that several other guides offer, he also will take you up into Otter Creek and anchor to catch yellow perch, white perch, and walleye. I haven’t fished with him, but this is an intriguing option that seems like it might be great for kids.
Past Tournament Results
There’s often information you can glean from past tournament results. Either the results themselves have a bit of information tucked away, or at least they give you names to google to see if you can find a news hit with some information on how they won.
There’s so many tournaments on Lake Champlain that it would be an entire series of posts just to try and find them all. I am not Google – they can do that. There is, however, one incredibly great resource: Anglerschannel.com and their link to Lake Champlain. This is basically your one-stop shop for all major tournament information on the lake with numerous articles discussing how various pros did on their fishing tournament on Lake Champlain. Check it out!
Tackle Shops
Sometimes the best place to get information is a tackle shop. Here’s a few links to get you started finding them. Most of the shop owners are happy to act as a resource for fishing Lake Champlain IF you approach them with a question like, “What should I buy that’s working?” They want you to buy more!
I need to put in a little plug for Norm’s Bait and Tackle. Located just west of the Crown Point bridge in Crown Point, NY, Norm’s has everything you need for a good fishing trip. The staff is super helpful and friendly and they’re more than willing to let your kid peek over the fish tanks to see all their live bait. I’ve been going there for years and have never been disappointed with the selection or service. You can also buy fresh food there including fresh-caught yellow perch.
If you aren’t near Norm’s, take a look at the other bait shops around. Don’t be fooled – Plattsburgh has plenty of places you can get tackle too, but it’s mostly big box stores.
Other/Miscellaneous
Here are some other resources about fishing Lake Champlain that just didn’t quite fit anywhere else.
- www.lakechamplaincommittee.org – Limited fishing discussion (though they have a few pages) but they have a great deal of interesting articles about the lake’s ecology. They also published an interesting book, Lake Champlain: a Natural History.
- Major League Fishing’s 2019 Challenge Select took place on Lake Champlain. You can stream episodes from Amazon. If you’ve never watched a Major League Fishing event, it’s an interesting format. Given that it relies on total weight vs. top five fish, you get to see what the pros do when they’re fishing for quantity.
- I’ve found that SUNY Plattsburgh’s study on Post Tournament Release Movements of Black Bass in Lake Champlain to be an absolutely fascinating document. Reading it will help you understand the lake’s ecology a bit more.
My Personal Lake Champlain Fishing Reports
I regularly fish Lake Champlain myself and post fishing reports when I can. Here are some of my favorites:
- Lake Champlain Fishing Report 5/28/19 – 6/1/19
- Lake Champlain Fishing Report 6/30/19 – 7/5/19
- Lake Champlain Fishing Report: I Hate Weathermen
- Vertical Jigging for Lake Trout on Lake Champlain
- Lake Champlain Fishing Report: Wrath of the Rat-L-Trap
- Lake Champlain Fishing Report: October in Bulwagga Bay
- Bulwagga Bay, Lake Champlain Fishing Report: 11-5-2022
I hope you found this article useful. If you have a website featured please consider linking to this to help others find it. If you would like your website added, please send me an email and I’ll be happy to oblige. Also, consider joining FishingFather’s Facebook page so you can keep up-to-date on all new content.
Have a great day for fishing,
John Paxton
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