I went out with my friend Josh the other day as we headed to Silver Lake for a couple of hours of fun fishing. Josh is also a member…
I went out with my friend Josh the other day as we headed to Silver Lake for a couple of hours of fun fishing. Josh is also a member of the Eastern Shore Bassmasters and his son Devan, a member of our Junior club as well.
We started out trying to coax some deeper water fish off a quick drop in this somewhat featureless open water man-made lake. We were targeting pre-spawners in about 6-7 feet of water with lipless crankbaits, and mid range wobblers. We then moved up on them real shallow flipping and pitching jigs and soft plastics to the submerged wood and blowdowns along the lakes western shore, but no takers.
Past pre-spawn experience led me to the back of the lake in the emerging pad fields, where my brother and I once spanked the bjesus out of them throwing flukes in early spring. So Josh and I pull up on the first pad field, Im throwing pearl shad Bass Assassins and Josh is retrieving a 4-inch Bass Magic Swimbait through the pads. He hooks up with the 1st, then the 2nd, and has me by three fish to one pretty darn quick! Ive been getting good blowups on the fluke, as we were fishing only very nearly 12 inches of water at this time, but no hook ups.
The bite fizzles not long after and we try our luck on some laydowns that I have pretty decent fish on nearly year round. No luck pitching the jig but I managed one on a shallow running crankbait, typical Silver lake keeper, running about a pound and a half. Without getting any more bites on the wood, we head back to the pads and change up our tactics.
This time Josh tries a buzzbait, as the fish seemed to be hitting close to topwater in the very shallow water, and I opt for the Lucky Craft Wake bait. We get on em pretty good again and figure out these fish are only hitting any subsurface lures, or anything that causes just enough wake in front of them. We both pretty much fill out close to a limit here.
As we pull up on a slight point in the shore line vegetation, I have this really big fish engulfs the wakebait, really not less than 10 feet from the boat. With the strength and flex of my 70 MH Powell Max 703CEF I get her close enough and Josh dips her with the net and we get her on board. Both stunned by the size of this quality fish. We know for a fact these fish are in this lake, but to see one lying on the deck of your boat is just jaw dropping. We admire her beauty and release her after a photo op. She was estimated at first maybe five to five and a half pounds, but she may have been pushing 6 with the eggs and full belly on her. What a beauty, maybe my 2nd personal best of all time. [By the way, my personal best came from this very lake in late March of 2006, a wonderful 7 pounder on yes, a lucky craft RC in American Shad]
So again this bite in the pads fizzles for a while and we head on out to the main lake for some point fishing. I manage one more keeper on a lipless crankbait, that was all. We decide our pattern has been to fish the pads, give it a rest and go back for more, once the place settles back down.
We head back again and start whooping more fish, this time with Explosive Tackle spinnerbaits in Perch and Sexy Shad. Only now, other anglers have caught on to us and were duplicating our pattern as they have seen us come in, run out, and come back for more. We got a good laugh watching the worm fishermen working the shoreline to no avail, abandon their pattern and roll up into the thick of the pad field below us and start casting.
I hope they did well I should be getting paid for this stuff
Tight Lines….
Dave Perrego
President, Eastern Shore Bassmasters of Delaware
