Report -- Silver Lake Provincial Park and Area

[Attila]

Report -- Silver Lake Provincial Park and Area

Yesterday I set out from Toronto for Silver Lake Provincial Park, situated on Highway 7 approximately 100km west from Ottawa. The nearest large town is Perth, which is home to several little motels and stores including popular fast food restaurants like McDonalds and Wendy’s along with a Shopper’s Drug Mart. All along Highway 7 are little businesses which range from gas stations (gas was about $1.00/litre at them all) to family restaurants. The scenery is quite striking along the way, with plenty of swamplands and classic Canadian Shield rock formations.

The Park

I arrived at the park after about a 3 hour drive from Toronto. The first thing you should know is that, unlike other provincial parks, there is no lane to make a left hand turn into the park from. This means that if there is traffic they’ll pass you on the right by using the shoulder of the highway. Once inside, the park staff was friendly and polite and ready to point out the main areas of the park, which were basically the beach and the playground. It’s a very family friendly park, so those of you with kids will never run out of things to do to keep them occupied. There are canoe and kayak rentals available and three docks which are really comfortable to both sit and stand on. The park is divided into three campgrounds; Wesley, Dawson, and Algonquin. I stayed in the Wesley campground, which was the only campground with an available site as I booked online within a week of my stay. I hate saying it, but this particular campground was not all it was cracked up to be. The worst part about it was its proximity to Highway 7; I could hear the traffic coming and going all night. The site was a split level site and a bit on the small side. It came with the standard fire pit, picnic table, and small area for a tent, nothing huge though. As well, don’t expect much privacy from your neighbours as you can see from the picture posted below. If you are going to book a site, I would go with the Algonquin sites which are furthest from the highway and closest to the lake. They offer a lot more room and access to both the beach and playground.

Silver Lake Campsite by Attila Papp, on Flickr

The Fishing

After getting my site setup and having a quick bite to eat, I drove down to the beach/dock area. There is ample parking for both cars and trailers, which was nice to see. The docks and the boat rental were to the left of the main beach. There is a boat launch available should you bring a boat with you. Directly off the docks was a large weed bed which was about 4-5ft in depth. It continued to the right of the docks all the way to the swimming area. Hiding under the docks and throughout the weed bed were large numbers of sunfish, perch, rock bass, and little largemouth in the ¼ to ½ pound class. It’s easy to see why the kids would have a fun time fishing there, as all you’d have to do is sit down with a worm and a float and you’d be kept busy all day. I fooled a lot of fish using a yellow 1” curly tail grub on a 1/16^th oz jig head under a slip float; fun times! There were also shallow rocks nearby under which you could find crayfish, which always makes for a science lesson for the kids.

The first big fish location that caught my eye was to the left of the docks. It was a large rock flat that appeared to sit in water from 1-4’ deep and was bordered on the dock side by the weed bed mentioned previously. I had on my large walk-the-dog/popper style lure, a Heddon Pop'n Image in the gizzard shad colour. I managed to have a few decent sized fish blow up on the lure but the only takers were numerous smaller largemouth as per the picture below. I went for a bit of a walkabout and found a few places that I thought had some potential which I would hit early in the day today. I finished the day by enjoying some ultralight fishing.

Silver Lake Little Largie by Attila Papp, on Flickr

The first area that I went to was just to the right of the beach. It had large rocks extending out into a weedbed with a gradual drop off along the way. If I was a largemouth, I told myself, I’d want to live there. With the wind gusting up to 25km/h, a topwater just wasn’t an option. I figured a jerk bait would be the way to go, and I wasn’t disappointed. My first cast produced a largemouth of about 2lbs, and subsequent casts produced fish all the way up to about 3lbs. I purchased a new spinning combo before the trip which I wanted to break in, and these fish were just the ticket for the Daiwa Tatula 7' medium action jerk bait rod and Exceler 2000 reel. I had it spooled with 20lbs Power Pro Super 8 Slick in timber brown with about a 4ft long 8lbs test Seaguar InvisX flurocarbon leader all connected with a uni to uni knot. The bait of choice was a Rapala Shadow Rap Shad in yellow perch. The largest fish of the day, pictured below, came in at about 4 ¾ pounds; it hit like a freight train and ran that leader all over the rocks but it didn’t damage it at all. I’ve really grown to like InvisX over the last couple of years, and this fish just further reinforced that I made the right call. Sorry for the image quality, but I was shaking like a leaf from excitement and there wasn’t much light available at that time due to the clouds that had poured in.

Silver Lake Largie by Attila Papp, on Flickr

After catching the brute, I went to a smaller beach which was located to the left of the boat rental area. There were several large rocks visible in the water and no sign of weeds so I decided to change up the colour and target some smallmouth which I read about. A few casts produced some fish up to about 1 ½ lbs, but nothing of any real size. I decided it was time to move on and try some other water but didn’t have as much success as what I had experienced in that area to the right of the beach. For those wondering, there was ample room to cast from shore with the 7’ Tatula in most of the areas. There was a bit of a drop from the main ground to the water so make sure that you have proper footing when walking around the rocks over there.

So to some up, the fishing was great and the potential for some huge fish definitely exists. With additional panfish fun for the kids and the kid in all of us, there’s plenty of fun to be had for both the serious angler and those just looking to spend some quality family time sitting at the end of the dock. If I had rented a canoe, I’m certain I could have found more areas such as that which produced the hawg noted above. I wanted to spend some time fishing what appeared to be a canal that entered the lake further down the shore from where I found success, and perhaps when I return, should the weather conditions agree, I’ll get to venture there and to fish the large weedbed which fills the entire bay to the right of the swimming area.

Additional Opportunities

So here’s a tidbit that I wasn’t aware of; you could visit other provincial parks and not have to pay the cost of admission up to 10pm of the last day of your camping stay, which for me was July 2. Situated about 10km west on Highway 7 was Sharbot Lake Provincial Park, which provided access to both Sharbot and Black Lake. Having never been to the park, I decided to go and see what it was like. The park had large, spacious sites with plenty of privacy and the majority were set back from the highway. I followed the signs to the Sharbot Lake boat launch and parked at the local dog beach, which was devoid of any canine activity. A few casts around the area produced some smaller largemouth but there were several pieces of eye candy present in the form or large boulders and submerged trees and logs which hinted that there were some big fish present that just weren’t in feeding mode. I didn’t get a chance to check out the Black Lake campground due to the inclement weather but if it’s anything like the Sharbot Lake campground it will be more than adequate for your camping needs. One thing I plan on doing when I next visit the area is to camp at Sharbot Lake and to make an early morning trip over to Silver Lake.

In addition to the provincial parks in the area, there were a few picnic sites along Highway 7 between Tweed and Perth. I stopped at a couple of the sites and managed to catch a few bass though nothing of any size. Given I was fishing them towards the middle of the day and not in peak hours, I didn’t expect much more. The stops are nice to get out and stretch ones legs and perhaps enjoy a bite to eat, and, while they do come with facilities, unless you’re used to the outhouse smell, I’d try to stay clear of them and use the washrooms available at any of the gas stations in the area. One also has the chance to fish Stoco Lake while passing through Tweed and during a brief 30 minute stop at the Tweed Memorial Park I managed to land a few bass off the dock next to the boat launch.

I apologize for the lengthy report but wanted to provide everyone considering visiting the area as much helpful information as I could which might help them with their stay. If you have any questions, feel free to post them below and I’ll answer them as best as I can.

My next stop will be Grundy Lake Provincial Park, situated on Highway 69 just south of the French River.

[Rugger]

Great detailed report Attila. Lots of good info for ppl looking for new camping destinations, thanks.
Nice largie! It's a little tougher when you can't boat to little isolated spots, congrats!

[Attila]

Great detailed report Attila. Lots of good info for ppl looking for new camping destinations, thanks.
Nice largie! It's a little tougher when you can't boat to little isolated spots, congrats!

Thanks Rugger, was definitely an interesting stay. Looking forward to the next one as well...something so cathartic about camping I find.

I've learned how to breakdown the spots that I fish and have figured out what keys I'm looking for and it helps a lot. It's definitely a learning game and I do the best that I can with the cards that I'm dealt. I am wondering what life with a boat will be like as I have hopes to buy a bass boat in the next 5 years...should be interesting.