Top 5 Patterns from Champlain Day 2
North and south end both producing
Day two of the Rayovac FLW Series Northern Division event presented by Plano on Lake Champlain definitely shook up the leaderboard. While Glenn Browne took a huge lead, the rest of the pack swapped around and remained pretty tight. Browne is catching his fish down south near Ticonderoga, but the north end has also produced very well for the rest of the field.
Read about Browne’s leading pattern here.
2. Otis Darnell – Linden, Va. – 38 pounds, 14 ounces
Otis Darnell has the confidence of a champion. The Linden, Va., boater set out to win the Angler of the Year title in the Northern Division, and he might have a shot after his 26th-place finish on the James River to start the season and a top-10 cut this week.
“I should have had a limit of 4-pounders easy today, but I missed so many fish,” says Darnell. “I’ve got some [stuff] keyed in on, man. Nobody knows how to fish this way up here.”
Darnell is very tight-lipped about the specifics of his pattern, but he is flipping some kind of plastic for largemouths on the north end of the lake. One big key is the hook that he is using, and he only has a few of them left.
“I probably went through 30 or 40 fish today, and I saw a couple more big ones come up,” reveals Darnell. “There are thousands where I am. It is just unreal. But, if they don’t bite, they don’t bite.
“I feel like I can have a magical day,” he continues. “I had an absolute giant come off yesterday. I really feel like I can win it, but this guy [Glenn Browne] is putting a damper on it.”
3. Gerald Spohrer – Gonzales, La. – 37 pounds, 12 ounces
Gerald Spohrer is enjoying the fishing and the break from the Louisiana heat this week on Champlain.
Checking in with mixed bags both days from the north end, the young pro has certainly made an impression.
“I was sitting on about 18 pounds of smallmouths by 10 o’clock this morning,” says Spohrer. “After that I went flipping for largemouths. Most of my weight came before lunchtime.
“Catching fish is not a problem, but getting those kickers takes a little bit of luck. I know where they live, so I’m going to go do the same thing tomorrow.”
Spohrer is flipping a bruiser-colored Missile Jigs Ike’s Mini Flip Jig with a green pumpkin Missile Baits Baby D Bomb as a trailer for his largemouths. He’s fishing a grass bed in about 8 feet of water for his smallmouths using a very interesting technique.
“I’m doing a technique I learned on Toledo Bend,” explains Spohrer. “I’m taking a 3/4-ounce weight and a Texas-rigged tube and flipping it out and stroking it up into the grass. I’ve seen a lot of guys go through there and not catch them, and then I go through behind them and catch fish.”
4. David Cioppa – Hopkinton, Mass. – 37 pounds, 6 ounces
David Cioppa grabbed the lead in grand fashion on day one, but the Massachusetts angler slipped hard on day two courtesy of the stiff west wind that lasted much of the day.
“I’ve been fishing that spot for years,” Cioppa says of his day-one honeyhole. “It doesn’t produce in a west wind.”
Cioppa’s backup plan was a pair of shelves about 20 feet deep on the New York side that he mined with a drop-shot rig and a Carolina-rigged Strike King Rage Craw.
If the wind is out of anywhere but the west on the final day, Cioppa likes his chances to catch another big bag.
5. Derick Olson – Honey Brook, Pa. – 37 pounds, 6 ounces
Derick Olson is the second member of the top five making the long run to Ticonderoga. So far it has paid off handsomely for the Pennsylvania angler.
“The bite was slow this morning, but the afternoon bite was really good,” details Olson. “I caught all my fish in one spot. I fished about five spots this morning until I finally collided with a school.”
Once he found them, Olson went through about 40 bass to get the 18 pounds, 5 ounces he brought north with him to weigh-in.
Olson says he’s slowly fishing a drop-shot in patchy grass that’s about 6 feet deep.