Being new to silver fishing, I almost balked at my buddy's request to return to Loon. My silver experience is limited to only two prior trips, one to Chapman and one to Loon earlier this year. On both occasions my lack of experience showed and I got schooled! Den did well both times, though, and I was able to glean some info/experience from my mentor. So, I put on my "game face" and headed out on what I believed would be another exercise in futility. I did do some more research though, and found a Youtube video that gave me a new lure tip.....we'll call it the "secret weapon" for now (hey, everybody has a secret weapon, right?).

We arrived at Loon at 7:00 PM and began looking for some crappie along the docks. No luck today, although we'd caught two 13" crappies last time out. Headed out to our one and only known hotspot, in 30 feet of water. Very slow at first with very few fish marked. We both were fishing glow hooks, me with red maggots and Den with corn. At about 11:00 we began marking lots of fish, tight to the bottom, and I tied on the secret weapon, still tipped with red maggots. At about 11:15 the best silver bite I've ever experienced commenced. It was a suicide bite! When this newbie hits five consecutive fish on five consecutive strikes, that's a good bite! They were actually grabbing and holding on like trout. In the next 2 hours or so I got about twelve silvers to net and lost a few at the boat. Den got a few during this time but his glow hook w/corn was not getting the strong takes my setup was.

Shortly after 1:00 AM things calmed down and the tough fishing began, those quick and very subtle takes that require patience.....Den calls it "working them".......slowly up, down, jig it, wait, repeat, all in an attempt to bring it back. We got several more in the next 2.5 hours, most of which took on the rise. I was getting them on white maggots at this time so I don't think color was an issue. We were getting consistent action all night too, but they became harder to entice as dawn approached. This was my buddy's territory...he's very good at working and getting these fish.

I'm still not convinced that my secret weapon earned all the credit. The bite was the strongest I've ever seen in my limited experience and had to have had something to do with it....although it didn't translate into near as many fish for my highly-experienced buddy. For whatever reason, they really liked my setup. Thanks Youtube dude! We will try it again in the near future to see if there's something to it. We ended up with 24 silvers on ice, most of which were in the 14-16" range, with the rest being "tweener" fish around 12". We also threw back several dinks and a few tigers, one of which was about 18".

Take a big net. They go crazy at the surface, especially the big ones, which are difficult to swing into a small boat! Sorry no pics. I lose enough stuff while fishing already and mama would have my ass if I lost the camera!

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