New to VT, Looking for some Info on St. Albans Bay

[Daltar08]

Hello, I am a long time lurker on this page. I live in Maryland, and my parents have recently purchased a home on St Albans bay (eastern shore). I plan to ice fish in the winter here as much as possible, and have experience ice fishing in Maryland, as well as Iowa. I practice catch and release 99.9% of the time, and generally like to target large panfish. The reason of my post today is to hopefully link up/chat with someone who has experience fishing the bay, as the information I have gathered from my research has been somewhat all over the place. Basically, I want to find out what I have a chance of catching in the bay on a typical hardwater day, and realistic average ice conditions month to month. It is a 9 hour drive for me (during the summer), and want to make sure I am prepared when I come up.

Thank you in advanced, and I look forward to talking with some of you. Here is a photo of the football sized yellow perch we get down here in MD.

[Raven71]

I don't have any experience ice fishing Champlain. I mostly ice fish the lakes in the Northeast Kingdom. Not to many people frequent this page during the off season,  so best to post the question again when the season gets closer. There are a bunch of Vermont fishing Facebook pages that are useful.  Tight lines!!

[mudchuck]

Welcome aboard Daltar8!
You'll find there's plenty of hardwater action in St Albans bay, mainly yellow perch of varying sizes (little dinks to slabs) from 1st safe ice all thru to ice out.
Also this bay has experienced a large following of people that look to get into the heavy white perch action that starts around mid-Feb thru to ice out usually in later March.
Plenty of northern pike too.
The white perch come in pre-spawn and are so thick you cannot see the water thru all the fish on your flasher screen!
~Mudchuck

Hello, I am a long time lurker on this page. I live in Maryland, and my parents have recently purchased a home on St Albans bay (eastern shore). I plan to ice fish in the winter here as much as possible, and have experience ice fishing in Maryland, as well as Iowa. I practice catch and release 99.9% of the time, and generally like to target large panfish. The reason of my post today is to hopefully link up/chat with someone who has experience fishing the bay, as the information I have gathered from my research has been somewhat all over the place. Basically, I want to find out what I have a chance of catching in the bay on a typical hardwater day, and realistic average ice conditions month to month. It is a 9 hour drive for me (during the summer), and want to make sure I am prepared when I come up.

Thank you in advanced, and I look forward to talking with some of you. Here is a photo of the football sized yellow perch we get down here in MD.

[Daltar08]

Thanks for the reply Mudchuck, I am planning to be up the last week of January, and then again the first week of March (for white perch). I am hoping there is safe ice (foot traffic and sleds) in January, but I am just not sure what to expect. My backup plan is to fish 5 or so lakes in the area if the bay has not locked up by then.  I will be fishing the Georgia shore side of St Albans bay. Very much looking forward to my first hardwater season in your beautiful state.

[Crayfish2]

Welcome, Daltar!  You have the chance to catch just about every fish species that swims in the lake in St Albans Bay (barring lake trout, maybe).  Perch, pike, panfish (bluegills and pumpkinseeds) and white perch will be most prevalent, but walleye and salmon can be caught as well.  I grew up in St Albans and try to make a trip or 2 to the Bay each winter.

I've also been down to MD hunting the Eastern Shore several times.  My 2 biggest-racked bucks have come from MD!

Welcome to Ice Shanty!

[Vtperchchaser]

Killkare is my go to when the ice is good. I’ve caught a laker and a like while they’re jogging for white perch. There was a lull in the whites and a big mark came in and hit right away first was a laker about 16” with a clipped fin. Layer the same day caught a small pike. Of course this ain’t deeper up in the bay but still considered the bay. Haven’t fished the bay for the last few yrs due to not so great ice