Bronzebacks, Pizza and Confidence Lures

July 9, 2025

Invited to jump in Casey’s boat for the day, I took advantage of his hospitality to spend some time chasing smallmouth amongst the islands on northern end of Lake Champlain. The ‘Islands’ region of the lake is quite different than the southern end, and the water and areas to explore can seem endless. If you were going to retire and buy that nice, little place up north, you could fish a different stretch of shoreline to fish every day and be content. At times it seems like an angler could fall in the water only to jump back in the boat and have a fish in their pocket. Of course, every yin has its yang and there can be days when it seems the fish have gone on strike, refusing to eat even the most delicately presented lures. If the southern end of Champlain is like a river, the northern end is an archipelago.

Top Lure Choices

The similarities between smallmouth and largemouth bass are many, but so are the differences. Lake Champlain has both, and while largemouth dominate the southern end and Mississquoi Bay, it’s smallmouth that rule just about everywhere else. Many of the lures used to chase greenheads can be used for their bronze cousins, but I do have a few favorites.

- Football Jig

- Texas-rigged Craw

- Topwater Popper

- Suspending Jerkbait

This smallie hit the X-Pop at 100 miles-per-hour

When asked to jump in someone else’s boat for a day chasing smallmouth these are the lures that immediately come to mind. I know that each angler has their favorites, but these are mine.

My second choices are pretty common too.

- Drop-shot

- Swim Jig

- Ned Rig

- Carolina Rig

In my mind, each of these comes with a few pros and cons and might not be as versatile as some of my other choices, but they’re worth mentioning because someone out there swears by them even if I don’t always make them my first choice.

Why, yes. That does make my ass look big.

Last but definitely not least are the lures I’ll throw when I have no confidence in what I’m doing. These are the desperation heaves towards the endzone that I only choose when everything else has either failed or made me hate myself.

- Senko (or plastic stick-bait)

- Fluke

- Spinnerbait

- Deep-diving Crankbait

I’m not crapping on any of these. They’re perfectly respectable choices for anyone who logs these as ‘confidence’ baits. For myself, they’re just not usually my first or second choice. I’m sure that someone out there vehemently disagrees with me. Well, good for you. Keep on truckin’.

Communing with nature, one stick of dynamite at a time.

Casey and I spent the day moving around a bit and discussing the where’s and why’s of certain choices. We were catching plenty of fish. It seemed that every spot we stopped to fish yielded something, but as the day went on, we came to the realization that the bigger fish we were catching all came on topwater stuff in slightly deeper water than most would expect. Ahhh, the life of a largemouth fisherman. We’ve both spent A LOT of time lately on the southern end of the lake where anything over ten feet deep is often considered too deep, and when chasing smallmouth we realized that the change in thought process was just as important as what we were throwing for lures.

“I think we could have stayed where we started and just thrown topwater all day,” he said.

Is there anything better than topwater fishing? Weeeee!

“It’s hard to disagree with you there,” I replied. “These fish are definitely looking up for an easy meal and the topwater stuff is selecting for our biggest catches. We should go back and finish the day strong there.”

“Anything you can do, I can do…reasonably as well.”

“And then go eat pizza,” he said. “Pan’s Pizza in South Hero is pretty good. I like their crust.”

My only wish at that point was that Pan’s didn’t close at 8PM. It’s hard to leave when the fishing are crushing topwater.

“Go ahead…make my pizza.”