A game of ounces

Baumgardner and Ober set for final duel on Champlain

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – They’ve traded blows for three days and now two capable pros are looking for the knock-out punch in the final round of Stren Series Northern Division action on Lake Champlain.

Snickers pro Chris Baumgardner of Gastonia, N.C. led day one, lost his lead a day later to Johnstown, Penn. angler Jason Ober, and then regained the top spot on day three. Like the morning sunrise obscured by threatening storm clouds, the final outcome is difficult to predict. Reasons: Both anglers have established solid patterns, and their destinies diverge along a narrow margin of just 11 ounces.

On day three, Baumgardner posted his best stringer – 20 pounds-10 ounces – for a 57-12 total. Ober said he lost a big smallie that would have pushed him well past his day-three score of 18-1. He enters day four at 57-1.

Both anglers will head north and fish the same areas they’ve camped on for the past three days. Baumgardner has worked creek bends where he’s focused on lay downs in 3-5 feet of water. He’s throwing a blue/black chatterbait with a touch of chartreuse in the skirt.

“That’s been working, so why change it now?” Baumgardner said. “We’ve had different weather every day and that doesn’t seem to affect (my fish).

“If they don’t bite the chatterbait, I’ll go to flipping (with a Zoom Brush Hog). But most of the fish are suspended, so you want a bait that stays in that zone.”

Ober has caught his fish on topwaters and crankbaits in 12-14 feet of open water. Today will probably present more wind than he’d prefer for his surface bite, so cranking will be his main tool.

Of the close margin, Ober said: “Eleven ounces on Champlain is nothing. This place can be unbelievably amazing, so it’s any man’s game today. The thing I have to do is capitalize on every opportunity that I have today.

“When you have Chris Baumgardner 11 ounces ahead of you and (guys like) Pete Gluszek (fourth) and Mike Iaconelli (sixth) behind you, you can’t make any mistakes.”

Aside from Baumgardner’s structure pattern, the dominant element throughout the lake has been the vast schools of yellow perch and the roaming buffet they’ve offered to Champlain’s predators. White bass and smallmouth get most of the attention, but Iaconelli has pursued a different objective.

“A lot of times on Lake Champlain, when people think about the perch bite they only think about smallmouth, but largemouth follow them too,” he said. “I’ve fished here long enough to honestly believe that largemouth win the majority of tournaments, especially in the spring and summer.”

Running north to Champlain’s Vermont side, Iaconelli is targeting weed beds in 8-10 feet of water in Missisquoi Bay and fishing a crankbait that bears a strong resemblance to the tasty perch. Matching the hatch is important, Iaconelli said, but so is strategic action.

“I’m throwing in schools of 1,000 perch and you have to make (the lure) look injured,” he said. “It’s a deep-diving crankbait and it’s digging into the weeds. When it gets snagged and I rip it out of the weeds, it creates a movement that imitates a perch that’s hurt. That’s a trigger to those largemouth and that’s when they’re biting it.”

In the co-angler division, Chris Girouard of Epsom, N.H. and Thomas Shafer of Pine City, N.Y. traded the lead on days one and two. Day three saw the anglers tied at 42 pounds, 9 ounces but Girouard’s heavier bag allowed him to regain the top spot.

Close competition in both divisions will undoubtedly produce dramatic conclusions at the final weigh-ins. As Ober noted, victory will be determined by execution. He who does the best job of capitalizing on opportunities will raise the big check.

Tournament logistics

The Stren Series event, which runs July 16-19, kicks off the Northern Division’s schedule of four regular season tournaments. The total purse for the Lake Champlain event is $275,225. The winning pro could earn as much as $65,000 in cash and prizes if various contingencies are met, and the winning co-angler could earn as much as $35,000.

Action continues at today’s weigh-in, scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) at Crete Memorial Civic Center, located at Route 9 N. Beach Road, Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Saturday’s conditions:

Sunrise: 5:27 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 72 degrees

Expected high temperature: 81 degrees

Water temperature: 69-70 degrees

Wind: from the Southwest at 8 mph, then West at 10 mph

Humidity: 60 percent

Day’s outlook: isolated thunderstorms