Champlain dreams
EverStart Series final round begins, $15,000 and a boat on the line today
TICONDEROGA, N.Y. – It’s not like these guys are worried about getting skunked. No, you can bet the farm that the finalists in Saturday’s final round of the second EverStart Series Northern Division tournament of the year will catch more than a few bass limits. This is magical Lake Champlain, after all, and few competitors are worried about laying goose eggs.
The trick will be catching the right fish.
Pro finalist Tom Monsoor of La Crosse, Wis., caught a very nice five-bass stringer Friday that weighed in at 17 pounds, 1 ounce. Still, that weight was only good enough for sixth place in the semifinals.
“What do I have to do?” he asked incredulously. “Isn’t this place amazing?”
It is. And one of the most amazing aspects has been the unexpected emergence of the largemouth bass as the target of choice for anglers fishing on this huge smallmouth fishery. The top two pros in the semifinal round both fished for largemouth, and some of the biggest bucketmouths of the week have come in at around 5 1/2 pounds. And with a south wind making the run north to the preferred smallmouth locations a hairy ordeal on big Lake Champlain, the largemouth might just be the ticket to victory Saturday.
“I had no idea the largemouths could get so big up here,” said pro John Kitchens of Smyrna, Ga., who finished the tourney in 17th place Friday.
The top 10 pros and co-anglers departed Ticonderoga City Ramp at daybreak and will fish until 3 p.m. Saturday’s final-round weigh-in begins at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart located at 1134 Wicker St. in Ticonderoga. The pro winner of the one-day shootout will take home $15,000 and a Ranger boat and the co-angler winner receives $6,000.
Today’s conditions
Sunrise: 5:37 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 63 degrees
Expected high temperature: 78 degrees
Wind: from the south at 5 mph
Relative humidity: 87 percent
Day’s outlook: chance of isolated thunderstorms
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