“It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said the pro angler from Erie, PA. “The largemouth bass are in post spawn and they are schooling up in the grass. The problem is there are miles and miles of grass, acres and acres of grass. There are a million schools of bass, but you have to find those that are 3 1/2 pounds and up.”

Fishing the deep-water grass that is prevalent in Lake Champlain is like ledge fishing on other lakes, Lefebre said.

“There are definitely the right-sized fish in there – if you can get around them.”

To complicate matters, the lake is about 100 miles long. Anglers can motor 30 miles north and find plenty of grass to fish, or they can run 70 miles south to find more grass to fish in. The winner likely will be the one who makes the right decision about which end of the lake to fish – unless he just happens to be incredibly lucky.

Lefebre said lure selection will take a back seat to hitting the prime location. He said that good largemouth baits would not be any surprise – standard lures like jigs, frogs and flipping soft plastics.

In the first part of his practice this week he concentrated on the southern part of the lake, but he planned to head north on Wednesday to check things out before deciding on whether he will trade more fishing time for a possibly better location down the lake.

And, he noted, what he found down the lake in practice was very good. The fish are in total post-spawn, he said, and they do not appear to be in a normal post-spawn slump.

“Usually at first after the spawn the fish will be all messed up, but they are really healthy. Even the 2-2 1/2-pounders are like footballs. They are probably as fat as I’ve ever seen them.”

Lefebre said he has not checked out the smallmouth population in the lakes because he feels it will take a daily limit of largemouths to win the tournament – maybe 18 1/2-19 pounds a day.

And he is in it for the win. He has finished 8^th and 2^nd in the last two Northern Division tournaments held this same weekend in July and that second place last year still sticks in his craw a little.

Lefebre was sitting in first place with a three-day total of 51 pounds, 14 ounces, when pro angler Thomas Lavictoire Jr. of Vermont came to the scales and knocked him down to second.

“I need 1 pound, 4 ounces, more than I had last year,” Lefebre said.

He is also fired up for the 2014-2015 season after missing qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup for the first time in his 12-year FLW career. He was unable during the year to recover from a zero finish the first day of the first FLW Tour tournament of the year on Lake Okeechobee because of motor problems back in February.

He is focused on fishing the FLW Tour and the Rayovac Northern Division, with the hope of returning to the field of anglers invited to the 2015 Forrest Wood Cup. The top 35 pros from the AOY race for the FLW Tour are invited to the Cup and spots also go to the 2013 Rayovac FLW Series AOYs in each of five divisions.

“You’d better believe I’ve got that on my mind – to qualify for next year,” he said.

There is also a bonus with the top anglers from each division earning the opportunity to fish in the Rayovac FLW Series Championship which will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 1 on Wheeler Lake in Rogersville, Ala.

 

Rayovac FLW Series – Northern Division

Jul 17-19, 2014

Lake Champlain

Dock Street Landing

www.flwoutdoors.com