Took the family out for some magic hours sweetwater fishing. My son asked to go yesterday, but the weather wasn't the nicest. Figured we always had good luck with pickerel at Bamber Lake and it would keep the kids happy and busy!
Loaded up and had to go east to go southwest to get some bait. No one near Bamber had shiners or killies, so I hit Murphy's Hook House. They had both, so I decided to try shiners. We usually just use killies at Bamber, but I figured the shiners might serve up some better fish. Only got a dozen and a half...knew the boys wouldn't last any longer than 18 baitfish
. The shiners were big...2-3 inches on average.
Made it out to Bamber Lake and fishing by 6:30 PM. Just my son's Lightning McQueen Pole(which was broken after 1 outing
) and my wife's pole...I was playing bait boy and my pole was on reserve in the car. 1st cast of Lightning McQueen, I hand the pole off to my son...his bobber is gone and he has a fish on. Reels it in and lands it all by himself. He had a small pickerel and thought it was great...it was GREAT! While I am taking pics, unhooking the fish and rebaiting, my wife has a big hit as soon as the bait hit the water. With a bent rod, a small fight and some aerial acrobatics, she brings in a nice size largemouth bass. I didn't have a scale or a tape with me, but it was around 3lbs give or take.
After more pics and releasing the bucketmouth(all revived and ready to be caught another day...fish unhooked itself and landed in the dirt before pics
), we rebaited and casted back out. Had 2 more fish, both came undone before landing them(Novice fisherman errors, but my wife is learning
). Another good size lm bass that did some flips too and an average size pickerel. Couple more hits, but we couldn't hook up. I think the shiners were a bit too big for some of the pickerel and they weren't getting hooked. All fish were caught on shiners, 1/0 snelled baitholder hooks about 6 inches under bobbers. Fished the northwest side of the lake, just before the waterfalls along the sandy shore.
Bamber Lake was really alive tonight. Saw lots of fish jumping and feeding. Shiners definitely worked better for the bass in there over killies. This is the first time we have used them there and the first time we have actually landed and seen bass at the lake, so...Would love to get back there with some lures, especially topwater lures at dusk again! It was a good day. The kids had fun, caught some fish and played with bait and I had fun watching them fish. I do have some pics that I am attaching.
