Champlain Dreams

The first tournament of the BFL Empire division was out of the South Bay launch in Whitehall, NY. 110 boats, 109 co-anglers. I fished for 2 days prior to this event and landed a grand total of 2 little largemouth bass. To say that my confidence wasn't overwhelming was an understatement. My boater draw for this tournament was Scott Fairchild from West Point. We met after the draw and he said he had a spot that he camped on for 2 hours and no one else came in to scout the area. The forecast was all over the board as far as whether we would have rain or not. I was prepared to be soaked like I was on Friday but the rains never came on Saturday.

Scott and I had a 5:15 launch time and we took a 20 minute boat ride to his spot, and what a spot! We never fired up the big motor until it was time to get back for weigh-in. Other than maybe a dozen or so casts with a toad across the top of the weeds, I threw a couple different colors of Outkast Tackle salt sticks, the entire day. It's been a long time since I've had arm pain from setting the hook, but what a sweet pain that is! That's the kind of fishing you want. We each had our limits within an hour and I was able to cull the entire bag. Scott unfortunately had his very first fish die in the livewell and he couldn't upgrade it. I'll bet we each caught 30-35 fish that day, just moving across a spot about 200 yards long in about 6-7ft. Of water. Another beauty of this day was that only one other tournament boat came into this spot and the weird thing about that was that the co-angler on this boat caught a fish, landed it and then they immediately left! That defies explanation.

When the day was said and done my bag weighed in at 13 lbs., 2oz for an 11th place finish and my first tournament check.

Good job. Congrats on your check. Champlaine is one great lake to fish.

Good going the boss, I have been reading and following FLW this year and I'm looking to do the empire state div next year.

What is your input on it. should I go as a boater or should I start out as a co angler.

Anthony are you upgrading to a bigger boat?

Good going Boss,

My partner Bill Slavis got 16 lbs., and a check in that tourney too...
He was around Ticonderoga.
But that's more than twenty minutes...
Did you FLY there?
BTW...I fished with Scott before...decent guy.


Skipajig4bass