This is Artificial Lure with your Lake Champlain angling report for Friday, September 26, 2025. It’s a crisp start up here, the thermometer on the dock in South Hero reading around 53°F this morning, and folks on both the Vermont and New York sides are breaking out the flannels. Wind’s out of the north-northwest at 10 to 15 knots, making for a little chop on open water, especially north of the islands and near the broad lake. Sunrise hit at 6:42 AM and we’ll see sunset tonight at 6:44 PM, giving us almost exactly twelve hours of daylight—a classic early fall day on Champlain.

No tides to report, being a freshwater lake, but water levels are steady and clarity is pretty good, thanks to a run of dry weather. That weather has made it easier for boaters to locate healthy grass beds, but sometimes a little tougher to pin down bass once you find those beds, as reported by On The Water.

Fish activity is solid and picking up pace, with both largemouth and smallmouth bass starting to stack up ahead of the fall transition. The recent Bassmaster Elite Qualifier out of Plattsburgh saw jaw-dropping numbers—Emil Wagner bagged fifteen bass over three days totaling 69 lb, 2 oz, the heaviest winning sack in Champlain’s B.A.S.S. history. The winning pattern was smallmouth pulled from dropoffs and suspended over deep water near sandy flats. The northeastern wind this week has moved bait around, sending bass on the hunt. Folks have been finding smallmouth on the edges of the Inland Sea and near the deeper gravel bars off the New York shore, often relating to the sharp breaks and isolated rock piles. Largemouth are still tight to thicker weed beds in shallower bays.

Top lures this week have been dark tube jigs and drop shot rigs in natural goby or shad patterns for smallmouth, as well as jerkbaits and swimbaits—think 3- to 4-inch paddletails in green pumpkin or smoke. Largemouth are hitting chatterbaits, texas-rigged creature baits, and wacky-rigged worms pitched into the milfoil pockets. If you want to keep it old school or have kids on board, live shiners or nightcrawlers under a slip bobber are accounting for plenty of rock bass and the occasional jumbo perch.

For quantity, it’s been mostly smallmouth in that 2–4 lb range, with some real footballs over five pounds showing up north of the Sandbar Causeway and off Valcour Island. Largemouth are a bit harder to come by in bulk, but 3 to 4 pounders have been reported coming out of Missisquoi Bay. The inland ponds feeding into the lake—such as Carry Bay and the mouths of the Lamoille and Ausable rivers—are hot for crappie and fall-run yellow perch.

Couple hot spots to mention: the drop-offs around the Gut and the east shore of North Hero are producing mixed bags. The humps off Valcour, particularly the rocky shoals south of Bluff Point, have been reliable for quality smallmouth, mainly on windy days when bait is blowing up against the structure. If you’re after largemouth, the bays around Ticonderoga and Missisquoi are still putting out fish, especially along the inside weed edges.

Remember that the aquatic vegetation is a little sparse this fall due to drought, so look for isolated clumps rather than wide beds. Zebra mussels and the occasional algae mat are still around, so check your lines regularly for fouling.

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