Largemouth could play in Champlain event

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – The MLF Toyota Series will conduct its second Northern Division event of the season this week at Lake Champlain. Competition days are Thursday through Saturday.

“The fish are biting good and expect to see some good weights in this one – even a little bit bigger than the Invitational that was here a couple of weeks ago,” said Alec Morrison of Peru, N.Y., who has seven Top-10 finishes on Lake Champlain in MLF competition. “The fish are going to be a little further ahead in their cycle – more into their summertime patterns. There are a lot of fish still mid-range, but the majority are moving out deep.

“I think the smallmouth will reign supreme, as usual,” Morrison continued. “But there have been some big largemouth weighed recently, not only in the Invitational but also in some local tournaments as well. I think we’ll see quite a few big largemouth in this one – more so than the Toyota Series event we had last year.”

Morrison said that he doesn’t think that anglers would be able to target and catch big largemouth for three days in a row, but that an angler could absolutely bring a limit of green bass to the scale.

“I think the angler who potentially can catch a good bag of smallmouth early – around 20 pounds – and then hunt for a big largemouth the rest of the day will likely be leading on the first day,” Morrison said.

Morrison predicts the standard smallmouth tactics to be strong, with a lot of dropshot and jigging minnow presentations to be popular tactics. He mentioned that he would mix in a topwater and jerkbait for some shallow-water fish. For largemouth, Morrison said that he expects it to be a game of flipping grass and maybe throwing a glide bait or a jig around docks.

“As a competitor, you have to go into a tournament at Champlain knowing that you’ll always need at least 20 pounds a day in order to be there at the end,” Morrison went on to say. “I think for this one it’ll take upwards of 63 pounds over three days to win. The top end weights will be similar to the Invitationals. But I expect the cutline weight to be a little higher for this one – maybe even a pound more.”

Anglers will launch at 6 a.m. ET each day from the Plattsburgh City Marina, located at 5 Dock Street. Weigh-ins will also be held at the marina and will begin at 2 p.m.

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