Our friends at the ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center are asking members of the Lake Champlain and Vermont communities to take some time completing their new survey . This survey is an opportunity to share your thoughts and ideas about Lake Champlain and tell them a little about how you spend your time and how you use social media.
Burlington Boatyard is one many local lake stewards (LCI, LCSC, Outdoors Magazine to name a few) that understand the essential role social media plays in promoting environmental and ecological awareness in both our local lake community and other watersheds around the country. We ask that you take a moment to provide your insight, opinions, thoughts and concerns with ECHO via this survey, and appreciate your continued support for all of us who strive to make positive impacts on Lake Champlain and beyond.
“Will Fish For Fun” Kids Derby is an open fishing derby for kids up to the age of 14 from anywhere or from any means. Our goal is to give them a connection with nature. This is a free event with no restrictions. The grand price is a Lifetime Vermont State Fishing License (for the oldest age group only). It is held and headquartered at the Burlington boat house every year, the Saturday after Labor Day (September 12th this year). Fishing is limited to the Burlington Waterfront from shore. Only kids are allowed to fish, and parents are encouraged to coach by all means. There is a coaching crew but our coaches can get overwhelmed very quickly. People who are interested in becoming coaches can apply directly with the Event Organizer, Pete Thayer (send requests to “therocknvt@yahoo.com”).
The derby kicks off at 8am, rain or shine, and ends at 11:30am. We are happy and proud to have Charlie Papillo from WVMT Radio’s “The Charlie and Ernie Show” on AM620 weekdays early morning, not only hosting our derby, but also helping us promote the event and gain sponsorship, and in general keeping the kids smiling.
If you and your children would like to participate, go to the website www.willfishforfun.com, and click on the Contact Us page to fill out the information for each child (we need it for t-shirt and pole sizes). Once the information is submitted, you will receive an email containing your registration paperwork, which you will need to bring on the day of the Derby.
Last year we had a moving line with over 100 kids in it for over an hour. Need to get’em kids fishing. We have given away over 300 fishing poles since our start 2 yrs ago and we hope to be able to buy and give away that many this year alone. We are doubling the bait order, which is partly donated by Hog Island Bait in Alburg, so nobody will go wormless. Junior’s Italian, which has been supporting us since our 1st derby, is also donating again this year.
Gerry Hartley, a friend of ours here at Burlington Boatyard and an avid Lake Champlain fisherman, has started his own blog about some great fishing experiences he shares with his wife Cathy and the many fishing friends he has made over the years.
His most recent story and pictures describe his time out on the UVM research vessel Melosira, where many are learning valuable information about the health and issues of Lake Champlain water quality and its fishery.
Please consider reading more from Gerry on his blog, here.
This past Saturday’s Free Fishing Day in Vermont surely went over well in promoting both the sport of angling and the need to support the state’s wildlife initiatives. We encourage you all to read this piece from the Rutland Herald, written by Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau.
State celebrates fishing tradition with free fishing day
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to love fishing, feed the state’s wildlife coffers for a lifetime.
On Saturday, the state of Vermont opened up its abundant waterways to anyone with a line, a hook and some bait. Unlicensed residents, and even out-of-state visitors, were free to go fishing without risk of sanction in what wildlife officials here say is the best fishery in New England.
“The whole concept is designed to give folks an opportunity to get out and enjoy fishing at least once during the year to discover how much fun it is, how relaxing it is and how great it is,” says John Hall with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife.
The promotion, which is part of this weekend’s Vermont Days, isn’t without ulterior motives. Hall says his department hopes that many of those first-timers will take a liking to the pastime and purchase a $20 resident license (the cost is $41 for nonresidents).
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department derives the lion’s share of its annual operating budget from license sales and federal taxes on fishing and hunting equipment. That revenue had until recently been on a steady decline. In 1987, Hall said, the state sold about 160,000 fishing licenses. In 2005, the figure hit an all-time low of 118,000. Since then, Hall says, sales have risen modestly, up to about 122,000 in 2008.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my fishing and boating friends and clients for helping make the spring, summer and fall seasons on Lake Champlain an overwhelming success. In spite of a wet summer, high gas prices and a stumbling economy, I hosted nearly 50 fishing charters from April through October. We thoroughly enjoyed sharing time on the water with our clients and friends this year.
Our website, www.LakeChamplainAngler.com, averaged over 75 hits a day during the peak season. It’s nice to know that many of you are visiting the site to keep up with the various published articles, videos and Burlington Boatyard blog entries relating to our beloved lake. Thanks so much to all the webmasters, forum publishers and web entities out there who have placed links from their sites to ours.
Our fledgling marine towing, rescue and salvage operation, “Lake Champlain Marine Resource and Services”, was also very successful in its first year. Together, Captain Randy LaValley and I came to the assistance of over 30 stranded boaters bringing them safely to port, protecting their passengers and their investments. The highlight of our season was providing transportation to a large Valcour Island wedding party in cooperation with a few associate Lake Champlain Captains.
With Ice Fishing season right around the corner, Burlington Boatyard has been working to ensure we keep the marine community aware of the many exciting and beneficial hard-water happenings taking place this winter in and around Vermont and the Lake Champlain area.
Recently, BBY has been working together with Shawn Hayes, a Fair Haven resident, active ice fisherman and member of the Champlain Crappie Crew (CCC), to provide exposure and promotion of the upcoming North American Ice Fishing Circuit qualifying tournament which will be coming to Lake Bomoseen in March of 2009.
Shawn, as well as other local anglers like Scott Blair of Burlington (fellow CCC member), have enlisted BBY to aid in developing press releases and getting regular coverage out to the community as the state prepares to welcome what will be the first nationally televised ice fishing event of this scope to take place in Vermont.
We welcome you to be a part of the action as we bring you the latest articles, updates and further developments as we prepare for what is shaping up to be an exciting hard-water season.
As a follow up to our original article, “9th Annual LCI Bass Open: Recap and Coverage” – and after many hours of editing footage - we finally have a full length feature of this year’s LCI Bass Open.Our newest video is dedicated to all the anglers, volunteers and sponsors that participated this year.See you all next year and hope you enjoy the film!
The 9th Annual LCI Bass Open was yet again another well run and exciting day for all anglers, staff and volunteers involved. There were 120 participants that took to the water in sixty bass boats, and Burlington Boatyard was there to cover the day’s events, launch to weigh-in.
At 4:30am, myself and Jimmy arrived at the Malletts Bay boat launch to start filming what seemed to be an endless line of pick-up trucks trailering their bass slayers down to the water and quickly going through check-in to get situated. As they manned their boats, many guys were setting up their ten or so rods, taking a coffee break every few minutes, only to get right back at it making sure all gear was in check and ready to reel in the winning fish.
As launch time drew near, we hopped on a pontoon boat provided by Jim Salter of Vermont Home & Marine, with James Ehlers of LCI to get footage of the teams taking off as their numbers were called out. Past the no wake zone, the guys were sure to “showboat” a bit and display what their rigs could do, which stirred cheers and jeers from those still in the launch.
After a long six hours on shore, it was 2pm and time to prepare for the return of the anglers. The LCI staff and volunteers had the weigh station all set up, everyone in place, and myself, Jimmy and Nick took the pontoon out on the water to check return times and collect the numbered tags of the teams as they returned. Finally, when all the participants had lined up with their bag of bass and continued sharing stories of their day, we had our winners and the check presentation followed. This year’s 2008 LCI Bass Open champs were J.J. Judd and Mark Hickory, who are members of the Green Mountain State Bassmasters. We had the chance to interview them and we thank them for their time. You can see the coverage in our video.
Overall it was a great day for everyone involved, and we were proud to be a sponsor as it allowed us to meet some really great people as well as get some awesome footage for a complete video that will be released soon!
Congrats again to J.J. and Mark on their win, and a special thanks to all the anglers that came out this year to make the LCI Bass Open another great day of celebrating fishing.
Guy Mitrano’s Burlington Boatyard Blog post highlighting a recent Wall Street Journal article on Yo-Yoing on the North Atlantic focuses attention on lead contamination here. Yo-Yoing, or using heavy sinkers placed in live baits for striped bass and other bottom feeding fish is not only bad for the environment, it’s a bad reflection on anglers. It happened on Lake Champlain folks, but on a smaller and less intentional scale. Vermont’s program to “Get The Lead Out” was the beginning of an effort by wildlife officials to minimize lead contamination on Lake Champlain. In Vermont it is now illegal to fish with lead sinkers weighing less than one-half ounce. New York has banned the sale of lead sinkers smaller than one ounce. There are not many cases of Yo-Yoing on Lake Champlain that fisheries managers know of, but lead sinkers were a problem for wildlife, especially loons and other waterfowl. It’s up to anglers to refresh their stocks of sinkers with the various options now available like tin or tungsten weights. The old sinkers can be recycled.
Recently, Burlington Boatyard came across an interesting web community forming on the Internet called Outdoor Freaks. Willie Urish, founder of the website, chatted with our team to discuss his growing outdoor community website.
BBY: What exactly is OutdoorFreaks.net?
Willie: OutdoorFreaks.net is an outdoor community for sportsmen and women all across the country.Through our dynamic website, we provide outdoor news and information to outdoor enthusiasts.Our Forum section is a great place to ask and learn about anything outdoors.Our real-time activities include youth hunts, fishing trips, camping trips and cookouts to spread the word about the great outdoors and give back to Mother Nature.
BBY: Who are the founders of OutdoorFreaks.net and how did the idea come about?
Willie:
I have posted on hunting and fishing message boards for a few years, and loved the idea of connecting with people who loved hunting and fishing across the country.All of these message boards were just a part of a bigger organization and I felt like they never gave the message board members the credit they deserved.I felt like if there was a community that really drove the actual website and its members, it would create a huge amount of value for people who love the outdoors.I made some calls and got some feedback, all was very helpful and positive-move forward with this.I called a good friend, a super web designer, and got to work!
BBY:
How do you see OutdoorFreaks.net impacting the outdoorsmen & women across the country?
Willie:
Our goal at Outdoor Freaks is to create a “hub” of outdoor knowledge on our website and grow to be a respected community nationwide.Our mission is “To provide America’s outdoor enthusiasts with a community of outdoorsmen and women that preserves and promotes outdoor activities through ethical teamwork.”Success to OF would be to continually grow and promote hunting and fishing through our real-time events and online community.
BBY:
What is your impression of BBY?
Willie:
When I first learned about Burlington Boatyard, I was intrigued. Businesses that are unique interest me and BBY was different; not like the cookie cutter businesses that are so common today.When I spoke with Guy Mitrano, I learned more about their mission and how everything came about.It became apparent that Guy and I had a lot in common, and that BBY and OF could potentially help each other.BBY clearly puts people first and is committed to helping out the Burlington area boaters, it is not hard to see why BBY has an extremely bright future!
Check out “5 Minutes With BBY” where Willie Urish, founder of OutdoorFreaks.net talks with Guy Mitrano about Burlington Boatyard.
Our friends at the ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center are asking members of the Lake Champlain and Vermont communities to take some time completing their new survey . This survey is an opportunity to share your thoughts and ideas about Lake Champlain and tell them a little about how you spend your time and how you use social media.
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