Champlain to Erie

Again I want to thank all of you for your kind words and support while I was in NY. What a derby. Beautiful setting, great fishing, huge smallmouth which were eager to eat. This was my first experience going after northern smallmouth and I feel like I learned quite a bit regarding natural lakes, I guess I will get to try and prove that next week on Erie.

I can tell you now what 'big' water is. I thought I had some kind of definition in my head as to what a rough lake was and well, I was wrong. If you go to the great lakes or anything like that, ask questions, do your research, utilize the internet to gather as much information as you can about how to be properly equipped and how to contact help if you need it. A 5 blade prop may indeed save your life.

So, moving on to lake Erie, this again will be an opportunity to get on some smalljaws but there is a difference in how this derby will unfold unlike Champlain. Many more anglers will be going after smallmouth where in NY at least half the field were splitting efforts between largemouth and smallmouth. I really think that helped me in NY. I am not saying you cannot get on a LM bite on or around Erie but the better fish in numbers and size are said to be SM. Lots of territory available around Detroit, Erie, St Clair, the Detroit and St Clair rivers are all in play so this will tend to 'stretch' the field. There surely will be one day where Erie will get to big to get on so the remaining areas will fish a bit smaller but still, that is a huge area. Current will also be guiding factor for some and I hope some of my Delta experience will help me find some of the ambush points available to those fish in the rivers.

I'm very excited to get up there.

I will post some pics of what I find.