Previous Next

Looking at the solunar tables I had planned on a 4 day trip to Silver lake for Crappie and dreams of filling the cooler with slabs. Wellll it had been a good long while since I was last there and I have to say I was disappointed to see what humanity has done to this once fabulous lake. The first thing I noticed is how unhealthy the Pad Fields looked, not sure if it is something environmental or all the big bass boats rummaging right on through the pads, next thing was how muddy the water was, visibility was severely restricted, never used to be that way. Of course the boat traffic is way up and being a shallow lake probably never gets a chance to settle down, but the real downer is the health of the fishery! I literally caught in two days of fishing hundreds of dinky perch and sickly skinny White Crappie, they were hungry enough alright but they were all clones not much over 7", surprised to see so many carp in the lake, don't ever recall seeing those in years past and the stench of dead carp floating in the pads was unpleasant. Then I have to say it was hard to put up with the thunder boats ripping up the lake adnauseum screaming and roaring about putting anyone on the water in harms way as I witnessed several close encounters at speeds of what seemed to be around 80+ mph. I pretty much stayed at the edges of the pads and fished the wood structure hard, I did connect with one nice sized Crappie, but I am running a new line that I reallllly like a lot called Berkley Nanofil, it's microscopic line that has tremeandous strength with zero stretch and allows for more than double my distance in castability. All this but it has a couple problems, one is you can use only a couple knots and the other which they caution you about I found out first hand why. See since there is zero stretch to this line you MUST set your drag very light, and they mean very light! The little fish feel like slabs as they hit and fight but the big slab that hit me up on the surface just as my spinner jig splashed down just about pulled the rod out of my hand and broke me off because my drag was not light enough to handle the "no stretch factor"... The line is almost the same diameter as a human hair, thus I can drop down in weight and get down deeper and faster than any other line I have ever fished, and it really behaves itself with no memory problems, I think this is one of those technological game changers that comes along only so often... I encountered many LMB blowups, but even they were small and lacked any shoulders. Not sure if this lake can be rehabilitated nor even deserves it, I think it will be the last time I ever fish it. About the only good thing I came away from this trip is that there is a very decent purple martin colony that has developed on the pilings on the west end of the lake, that was nice to see. Klahowya!

afk

8/16/2011 2:22:00 PM

Thanks for a very informative report. I always enjoy reading your stuff. Keep it up. Sorry to hear of the lake having gone the way it has.

Aaidian

8/16/2011 2:49:00 PM

I know from past experience on the lake that the crappie season is a little early. Best luck has usually been in oct,nov back in the canals, esp. streeter.

procaster

8/16/2011 7:38:00 PM

I watched the "infomercial for the nanofill. It looks pretty good. I usually use long slow action poles which helps with the zero strech. I love the berkely XT mono, but I bought some 25lb 100%flouro and it was carbage. I tried every knot out there and it would break like crappy 4lb. so I threw it away and it cost 25$. What lb test did you have, did you run it direct to your lure, and did you notice if the last couple feet flatten out and twisted like light braid will do? Thanks for the report.

Leave a Comment:

Login

Flag

×

Why is this comment inappropriate?

Close Submit

Delete this comment? Provide reason.

No Yes

Edit

×

Cancel Save