Bait Profile - Brook Silverside

I’ve often found very little effort goes into understanding different baitfish species. I guess concentrations of bait are going to concentrate big fish no matter what. But I always find it interesting to dive a little deeper into what they are and what seasonal happenings put them there. I always cringe when I hear talk about following the shad in a natural lake in SE Michigan or assuming any baitfish that swims around on the lakeshore is an alewife. I think we can do better to understand what baitfish we are actually around so I’m going to pop a little baitfish profile in once in a while.

I’m going to venture that this first one is fairly unknown although you’ve probably seen it at some point while on the lake as they are widespread throughout Michigan. The brook silverside is very slender compared to even shiner species and are a translucent silver color. They also don’t get very big as adults are 2-4 inches on average. They grow rapidly, have a short lifespan, and like most other baitfish are most prevalent in the fall as the young of year have grown to a size where both humans and predator fish notice them.

One thing you’ll observe if you ever encounter them is that they spend most of their time in the upper part of the water column. From my personal experience it is more common to see them as individuals or in loose small schools than large densely packed schools. But I’ve seen big numbers packed together before too.

 My most memorable time involving fishing that were feeding on silversides was actually ice fishing. I was fishing a marina and we were catching some quality perch. The perch were puking up enough silversides in good shape that we actually ended up using silverside heads to tip our lures with.