The Road to Champlain and a Tree Incident

I’m on the road to Lake Champlain this week for the FLW Open event. Lake Champlain is a great fishery and I can’t wait to get up there and whack both big largemouth and lunker smallmouths.

On the way, I stopped at 1000 Islands and did some filming with Mark Zona. Fishing with Zona is always a good time and it should make for a good show when it airs.

The trip has been a little bit of an adventure once again. After over $5000 in truck repairs I was still leaking fluid. This time it was coming from the Turbo unit on the truck. I got it semi-repaired with some duck tape and should be able to complete the trip like that.

Back home Lesley and the kids had a big scare. The winds in Alabama blew down a huge tree that fell on top of our fifth wheel. Although they will most likely total the fifth wheel because of it, it’s a good thing the tree hit it. If the fifth wheel hadn’t been there, the tree would have landed on the house over the dining room, where the Lesley and the kids were eating dinner. Losing the fifth wheel is no biggie in comparison to if it hadn’t been there. Here’s a before and after photo of the fifth wheel.

I have been continuing to run and I am up to over six miles now, and it’s getting easier. I am enjoying it, but I still can’t catch Lesley. I’ll be ready for her by the time the Ragnar relay gets here in January.

For fishing, we are getting into the fall in most of the country. Fall fishing is a lot of fun because the fish are actively feeding for the winter. Fish can be caught by almost any technique. It’s a great time of year to try some stuff that aren’t your strengths and get better at it. For power fisherman, it’s a good time to get familiar with some finesse techniques like Shaky Heads or drop shot. For finesse anglers it’s a great time to get familiar with cranking or spinnerbaits.

One bait everyone should get familiar with is the Shaky Fish from Davis Bait company. This is my personal favorite bait (formerly known as a scrounger). You’ll find that the Shaky Fish has a much more effective bill than the bait currently known as a scrounger from other manufacturers.

Off to Champlain, I’ll check back in after pre-fish to let you know what I found.