REPORT: A friend and I recently took time out to try for some large browns at Silver. We abandoned our float tube and flyfishing gear, opting instead to target these aggressive fish with large lures from a boat. We began our day by trolling southward on the east side of the lake, using leaded line and fairly large green flatfish. Bucking the wind was a major problem; however, we fished only a short time before my partner hooked up with a decent brown. He caught and released the 15 inch fish and, in the process, we lost about 50 yards due to wind gusts. We continued fishing southward, picking up four more similar sized fish in a couple of hours on the water.
There are several underwater islands on the east side of Silver that consistently produce fish, so we made it our business to locate them without the use of a depth-finder, and with a serious chop on the water that made visibility nearly zero. Our strategy was troll directly in line with where we thoughts the islands to be, hoping to bump bottom when our lures passed over them. This strategy worked, but unfortunately we were both broken off by these grass matted humps that rise nearly 40 feet from the bottom of the lake. Having located what we considered to be the ideal area in which to concentrate our efforts, we began casting large Vibrax spinners on the edges of these humps. After only several casts, we both hooked up with large browns. The fish continued to hit consistently until we had apparently exhausted the area. As an increasingly die-hard flyfisherman, I have to admit that this tackle chucking led to some of the most enjoyable fishing I've had in the Spokane area in many years. In only 5 hours of fishing, we managed to catch and release nearly 20 browns, all ranging from between 14-18 inches, and several small rainbows. Even the dock fishermen back at the resort were doing well. All in all the fishing was more akin to opening day fishing than to early April fishing at a year round lake. Silver is largely ignored once the general trout season opens (most likely due to its close proximity to lakes such as West Medical, Clear, Fishtrap, Williams, and Badger), but it usually continues to produce fish year round.

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