Roger Stephens
11-20-2005, 08:55 PM
My fishing buddy and I have had success targeting resident silvers(10-13") this past week and have given the sea-run cutthroat respite. We covered a lot of water in our boats looking for them. It was a beautiful, moody environment to enjoy on overcast days when the water surface was glassy.
We checked a few traditional winter resident silver locations but didn't see any fish except for 2 jumpers. Hopefully, the resident silvers will show up there in the near future like always.
We found 3 locations where schools of resident silvers were feeding on amphipods on the surface. The tip-offs were: (1) nearby sea gulls could be seen picking on the water surface as they were feeding on the amphipods, (2) could see numerous small(1/16-1/8") reddish/brown amphipods slowly spinning on the water surface, (3) schools of resident silvers could be seen periodically dimpling/swirling on on the surface as they feed on the amphipods. When the water surface occasionally became rippled, it was difficult to spot the schools of feeding resident silvers.
It was a fun cat and mouse game as the resident silvers moved up and down the shoreline. If we could determine the direction that they were moving, we would try to get ahead of them. If we were lucky, we had a minute or so to hook-up a couple of fish. It could get a little rushed since you need to cast your fly out there quickly before they moved out of casting range. It was not uncommon to get excited and have our casting lengths decrease since there was a tendency to hurry the casting stroke and not load the rods properly. We did see and hook a couple of fish that were a couple of inches larger than the ones that we landed.
Sometimes we would anchor the boat and patiently wait for a school of fish come by. But that could be nerve racking since you would often see a nice school of fish active several hundred feet behind the boat. Is it time to move down to them or wait for them:hmmm: .
Hope that this report and thoughts(apparent truths;)) stimulated you to check out out your local water for resident silvers.
Roger
We checked a few traditional winter resident silver locations but didn't see any fish except for 2 jumpers. Hopefully, the resident silvers will show up there in the near future like always.
We found 3 locations where schools of resident silvers were feeding on amphipods on the surface. The tip-offs were: (1) nearby sea gulls could be seen picking on the water surface as they were feeding on the amphipods, (2) could see numerous small(1/16-1/8") reddish/brown amphipods slowly spinning on the water surface, (3) schools of resident silvers could be seen periodically dimpling/swirling on on the surface as they feed on the amphipods. When the water surface occasionally became rippled, it was difficult to spot the schools of feeding resident silvers.
It was a fun cat and mouse game as the resident silvers moved up and down the shoreline. If we could determine the direction that they were moving, we would try to get ahead of them. If we were lucky, we had a minute or so to hook-up a couple of fish. It could get a little rushed since you need to cast your fly out there quickly before they moved out of casting range. It was not uncommon to get excited and have our casting lengths decrease since there was a tendency to hurry the casting stroke and not load the rods properly. We did see and hook a couple of fish that were a couple of inches larger than the ones that we landed.
Sometimes we would anchor the boat and patiently wait for a school of fish come by. But that could be nerve racking since you would often see a nice school of fish active several hundred feet behind the boat. Is it time to move down to them or wait for them:hmmm: .
Hope that this report and thoughts(apparent truths;)) stimulated you to check out out your local water for resident silvers.
Roger