PLATTSBURGH — He's still in college, but New Jersey pro Adrian Avena gave a lesson in largemouthin' en route to earning the top spot at the EverStart Northern Division tournament Thursday on Lake Champlain.
A junior at Chestnut Hill College and a standout in the FLW National Guard College Fishing Series, Avena sacked up a limit that weighed 21 pounds, 3 ounces on Day 1. With the only catch of 20-plus, he now leads the field by a little over a pound. His catch included the day's Snickers Big Bass — a 6-pound, 12-ounce fish.
Although renowned for great numbers of quality largemouth and smallmouth bass, Lake Champlain certainly did not make life easy for the EverStart field. The recent flooding as well as a drastic shift from sunny, calm conditions in practice to Thursday's dim, windy weather meant that anglers had their work cut out for them.
Skip Sjobeck was second Thursday, and Matt Stoupa came in third. Trudy Noechel took the lead in the co-angler division, while locals Chris Kinney-Hermes and Ryan Latinville were both in the top 10.
Day 2 begins with a 6 a.m. takeoff at Plattsburgh Boat Basin, and the weigh-in starts at 2 p.m.
Avena caught his fish by flipping a ⅜-ounce black/brown/amber All-Terrain jig with a Berkley Chigger Craw trailer and a Zoom Brush Hog, a weightless Senko and 5-inch swimbait on a 60 Owner hook. He ran south to Ticonderoga, where he caught his fish in about five feet of water.
"I only put in about a day-and-a-half of practice down there, and I already knew what I was going to do," he said. "I practiced three or four days (in the northern end of the lake) and just couldn't get on anything solid. There were a lot of guys fishing in the same areas, so I decided to make the run and try to get away from everyone."
With mostly warm and sunny weather preceding the tournament, Avena assumed his would be a brief period of activity Thursday. However, he was pleased to see the fish biting throughout his time on the lake.
"In practice, I really thought that by 9 o'clock I was going to be done," he said. "The bite was going to be over, and I was hoping I could catch my weight by then. But I caught that big one at the end, and I can thank the rain and the wind and the cloudy skies. That weather made the bite last throughout the day."
Bait diversity, Avena said, proved essential to generating the quality bites. "I'm fishing a really small area, and you have to mix it up because the fish are constantly seeing one thing," he said. "I had to change it up to get them to bite."
Staying north and slow rolling a swimbait led Sjobeck to second place with a haul of 19 pounds and 15 ounces of brown fish.
With most of his 12 fish biting in the morning hours, the Randolph, Vt. native said his key bait was an X-Zone Swammer — a 4-inch soft body swimbait with a high level of action even on slower retrieves.
"The action is unique — it kind of wiggles and wobbles," Sjobeck said. "The tail moves tends to move a lot faster at lower speeds, so you can slow roll it. With the conditions today, the fish weren't really aggressive, so that made a difference."
Sjobeck worked in 10-12 feet of water. Whenever he saw a break in the wind, he mixed in a little jerkbait action. After spending part of his practice in Ticonderoga, Sjobeck determined that he'd fare better at the lake's opposite end.
"I went down south where I usually do well this time of year, and they weren't grouped up like I like them," he said. "I came across a nice school of smallies (in the north end)."
With a solid limit of 18-9, Stoupa, a Virginia pro, departed Ticonderoga around noon and headed toward the weigh-in, but an engine problem cut his trip short and he had to leave his boat in a south end marina.
"I came in early and it was a good thing I did," he said. "If I wouldn't have, I would have been stuck down there. We got towed to the marina, I tied my boat up there and I jumped in with another competitor and he was nice enough to give us a ride back."
James Schneider of Watervliet weighed in at fourth with a sack of 18 pounds, 8 ounces that he caught on the Vermont side of the lake. Charles Main of Ellwood, Pa. caught the fifth-place bag of 18-7 in Ticonderoga.
Noechel, Thursday's top co-angler, brought back 18 pounds worth of bass.
"My pro was on bed fish this morning and I just fan casted around and caught my limit by swimming a tube," the Lost Creek, W.V. native said. "After that, we went to some largemouth and I caught my (biggest) fish on a Senko."
Brad Rutherford of Lavonia, Ga. placed second with 17-13, while Emily Mcleod of Williston, Vt. took third with 16-8.
Kinney-Hermes, who's from Champlain took sixth in the co-angler division with a catch of 15-13, and Plattsburgh's Ryan Latinville was eighth with 14-14.
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