With the promise of mild weather for the day, I convinced my wife, Boni, to accompany me for a morning of fishing at Silver Lake. We arrived at Thornton Sullivan Park at 6:30 AM and to my surprise and delight, found that the gate had already been opened. We made our way to the lakeside and were fishing by 7:00. One fisherman was already on the beach, and shortly after we arrived, we watched him reel in a hefty fish of 16" to 17"... we saw him catch two more in the 12" range before he left in mid-morning. The sky was cloudy with a mild temp of 54 degrees... barely a breeze at the outset. The water temp at the shoreline was 66 degrees. I set up Boni's rig with Pink Power Eggs on a 5' leader, one of mine with Fl. Orange PE on a 3' leader and fished a nightcrawler under a float on the other. About fifteen minutes in, Boni's rod tip began to dance and she reeled in a chunky Rainbow of just over 12". Twenty minutes later her rod tip was jerked violently toward the water and she was into a good fish... it cleared the surface of the water several times before she brought it to the net... a spectacular 'Bow of nearly 15 1/2". Meanwhile, I had no hits on my PE, but was getting lots of hits on the crawler... but having a difficult time getting a hook-up. I adjusted the depth of the float and trimmed the length of the worm and finally was able to hook a nice Yellow Perch of about 8". Boni continued to have hits and landed a couple more Rainbows before I changed my leader to 6' with pink PE as well. Soon I had a hit and reeled in a Rainbow of about 12". By 10:00 the action had cooled off on the Rainbows... I caught one more and Boni closed out her limit by 11:30. We missed many Rainbows because they would dive into the weed-beds near the shoreline on the way in, wrap the line around the vegetation and pull the hook out. I was having a great amount of fun catching Perch... was able to land seven in the 7" to 8" range, with one bruiser of 9 1/2" (I think I can envision fish tacos later this week!)... caught perhaps a dozen more in the 4" to 5" range which were sent back to grow a bit more. We ended our day about 12:30, with 7 great Rainbows and 7 Yellow Perch.
Had a great morning sharing God's creation with my wife. Saw several batches of this Spring's hatch of Mallard ducklings... Boni was delighted as they scurried around and under her chair. Surprised to see a huge, almost lobster sized Crawfish crawling on the bottom, near the shoreline. Love viewing the Ospreys and Eagles doing their thing.
Saw only 5 or 6 other anglers fishing off the shoreline, did not see any other fish caught by them... however, did see several fish caught out front by anglers in watercraft. Some very large splashes out on the lake suggest that there are some big fish yet to be caught at Silver Lake. PTL!