My brother was here visiting from the west side and wanted to spend time fishing, so after a 103 degree day at Chapman on Sunday, and a wind blown day at Silver, I talked him into going out on a rainy day at Newman. We hit the lake about 9am and since it was the first time I'd ever been on the lake we made a quick pass around to find likely areas. We settled on working some vegetation at the north east end of the lake and were glad for the canvas with all the rain. I had taken the side curtains off for our hot day outing and should have put them back on for the wet weather, oh well.

The winds were calm and provided for a perfect drift. We weren't in the water for more than maybe 10 minutes before we started getting bites, and I pulled in the first keeper crappie. We caught a few small ones, and some small perch, which all got returned to grow bigger. I hooked a good sized carp, I'm guessing maybe 5# or so, and it took almost twenty minutes to get it in the net. Was a nice fight on an ultralight setup and 4# line. First carp I've ever caught on a crappie jig.

The fishing died down and the wind picked up so we moved to a few other places in the NE bay, then tried the NW bay and found nothing. At this point it was probably noon or so, and we were about ready to call it a day until we went down to the south end of the lake and found a promising looking spot straight out from the launch. We got into crappie there and ended up with five 9 - 10 inchers and one almost 12" in the cooler. I also hooked my second carp of the day, another one around 5# or so.

We finally called it a day about 2pm and headed for the launch. It was perfect timing because the wind really picked up and made loading the boat difficult. The launch, while nice, is really lacking for any decent spot beach a boat without it being on rock or concrete. We made it work though.

We found the most productive color to be black/chartreuse, although I caught a couple on red/white too. My brother tried tipping his jig with a piece of worm, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. We were using plain lead 1/8oz jigheads with red colored hooks. Weather was overcast and rainy most of the time we were on the water, but there were a few periods of brief sun during the latter part of the outing. Surface water temp was within a half degree of 70 during the entire time out.

Sorry for no pics, I left my camera at home and my brother's camera wouldn't download to my computer.

TroutCowboy

8/22/2008 5:24:00 PM

I have a love/hate relationship with this launch. On one hand it's got a good amount of parking, two slots, and is conveniently located on the south end nearer to Trent/I-90, etc. And the good fishing.

On the other hand, there's no launch dock to speak of. Once you shove off the trailer you're in kind of a conundrum. Do you pull it back in and beach it on the concrete launch blocks? Or worse, the jagged rocks? Or do you have somebody idle the boat off-shore and come back in for you after you park? Getting in is a treat then, as you have to get wet to get on board. Then... you have about 100 yards to go from the launch before you're at a depth where you can be safe lowering the stern drive.

It would be nice if there was a dock, but let's hope they don't let the inexperienced intern who designed the Liberty Lake launch do it. ;-)

Glad you had a good day out though. I normally see your reports for Silver, you must have been at Newman because of the work on the Silver launch I read about.

hewesfisher

8/22/2008 7:50:00 PM

I can appreciate the love/hate thing with this launch. It's hard to nose a nice boat into concrete or big rocks, and my wife isn't really strong enough to wrangle the boat if there's any wind. Thanks for the tip about how far out one needs to be, I was unsure of the bottom structure so I ran the kicker until water depth was sufficient. I'd rather replace a prop on my kicker than my big motor!

We were out again today (I submitted a report with pictures but it's not up yet) and thankfully it was dead calm when we launched and almost the same when we recovered. With the exception of the Russian gentleman straddling the launch ramp with his two rods forcing me to recover on the opposite ramp, it was an uneventful recovery.

You guessed right, went to Newman because I won't launch at Silver again until after the launch reopens, not to mention the fact the crappie fishing seems to be better at Newman. We can have fast and furious action on them at Silver, but rarely ever catch a legal one anymore - they all seem to be right at 8 1/2". As much fun as they are to catch, we do enjoy them as table fare too!

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