COLCHESTER, Vermont — Fishing adventures with a long drive and an overnight or two (or three) stay consistently produce chance meetings. The Jeopardy! category for this occurrence would be titled “Back Home Boys.” Trips to Lake Erie or Lake St. Clair in Michigan usually have me bumping into somebody I know. One year the gatekeeper at Lake St. Clair’s Nine Mile launch ramp saw my Ohio tags and greeted me with a “You must be from Portsmouth, Ohio.”
This Amazing Kreskin of the Boat Ramp nailed my hometown! He then muttered, “The entire town must be here today.” Being such great fishing destinations and both within a day’s drive for Anywhere, Ohio anglers, Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair are prime targets for Buckeye fishermen.
The 14-hour drive to Vermont’s Lake Champlain has never provided those kind of chance meetings in the four trips I have made there. However, 2023 would create not one “back home bump into” experience, but four separate Buckeye contacts for Mary and me.
Our tri-level 76 Lakeshore Drive condo overlooks Lake Champlain’s Malletts Bay in Colchester, Vermont. Owned by Neil and Deb Gardner, this condo has become our Vermont home for a week the last four summers.
Before we ever checked in to our condo, we had the first Buckeye encounter. As I walked through the boat launch parking lot, my eyes locked onto a license plate from Wood County in Ohio.
“We’re here to fish the MLF Toyota bass tournament,” explained the mustachioed angler. I then remembered Eddie Levin from Westerville was scheduled to fish that event. Eddie had previously owned the Skeeter ZX 225 that is now mine. Sure enough, Eddie answered when I dialed his cell number later that week.
“Hey Doug, today was actually the first day of the tournament,” was Eddie’s reply when I asked if he was pre-fishing. “I had 19 pounds even. I’m somewhere around 20th place.” We didn’t have a chance for a face-to-face conversation, but we texted the rest of the week to stay in touch. The Major League Fishing Toyota Series was a 250-boat affair where the top 25 anglers qualify for the third and final day of competition. Eddie finished the tournament in 17th place.
Perry County provided my next Buckeye encounter. Kobe Thompson of Crooksville was competing in another MLF event. Kobe and his fishing partner Russell Botha were representing Adrian College in a 94 boat MLF Collegiate one day tournament set for a Sunday on Lake Champlain. Kobe and Russell were vying for a spot in the MLF Collegiate Championship. Their third place finish guaranteed their spot in the championship.
Kobe’s parents, Casey and Erin Coffey, arrived in the Vermont on the Thursday prior to the tournament. They stayed in Plattsburgh, New York which is located directly across the lake from Colchester. While we discussed finding a day to fish together, circumstances prevented Casey and me from sharing a fishing adventure on Lake Champlain. One of those circumstances was an all night stay Mary and I spent in the University of Vermont Hospital ER.
After Mary’s experience with the medical profession, her doctor pledged to perform any number of free surgeries on me if I left her unattended. Not wanting to throw off the bed covers one morning only to find a previously attached chunk of me lying in a bloody pool, I graciously decided to forego fishing with Casey.
Casey was catching smallmouth bass and “sunfish as big as your head” on the New York side of Champlain while I found smallmouth bass in Malletts Bay. My Vermont bass were hitting green pumpkin TRD finesse worms on a Ned rig I threw most of the time. When I wanted to have a spinnerbait destroyed, I left the deeper water where the smallies were located and headed for shallow, weedy bays. That’s where northern pike would transform a perfectly healthy Venom spinnerbait into a piece of wire with more bends in it than macaroni salad.
“Hey mister, did you catch anything?” And thus began my final finding Buckeyes in Vermont experience. The blonde hair that leaked from under a broad brimmed hat in a blue camo pattern belonged to a kid wearing an Ohio State Buckeyes t-shirt and packing a fully loaded spinning rod.
I confirmed that I had caught several smallmouth bass of average size when he countered with his fishing report.
“I caught a five-pound bass right here by the dock.” The dock was one provided by Neil Gardner for guests with a boat, and it was covered with kids and their parents. Our condo is a three-unit deal and this bunch on the dock was obviously our new neighbors.
“My name is Levi,” continued the nine year old bass master of the dock. His 13-year-old brother, Maverick, was also fishing.
“Cool name,” I told Maverick. “When I was your age, there was a TV western called Maverick.”
“That was Tom Cruise’s name in Top Gun too,” added Mary. “Your parents must be Tom Cruise fans.”
“I was named from the western.” Mav quickly clarified his namesake, and he did it with a glint in his eye. I liked this kid immediately. Turns out that the parents of these youngsters originally hailed from Vandalia, Ohio, which is in the Dayton area where Mary lived for over 30 years.
We shared lures, fishing tactics, and gear the next two days. Three sets of parents called these boys and more children as their own, but I had a difficult time keeping everyone in the right brood. However, I was never in doubt about their angling abilities. When a young girl sporting red curly hair named Annabel picked up a five-foot bamboo rod with four feet of line, bluegills started flying from the water attached to Annabel’s hook. I began an unhooking ordeal that mercifully ended only because I returned to Perry County.
“You fishing tomorrow?” asked Levi. And just like that, the bond of a new fishing friendship was sealed. The boys and I fished the next evening from the dock, but in reality, we watched Annabel catch fish while we made a million fishless casts.
Chances are the only time I’ll see these kids again will be when a fishing trip to Vermont takes place in the blink of a daydream. Even so, I will always remember the time we shared on a Malletts Bay dock. Anyone who believes the best part of fishing is the catching is missing the good stuff.
Levi… Mav… See you on the water. You too Annabel.