Great morning of fishing! My son and i headed out to american today, had the boat and lines in the water by 7:00 and fished till 10:30. Had the first fish on at 7:30 and it was a nice fat 17+ incher. Got the next one about a half hour later and it ripped the line out of the clip and just kept taking line! it was like fighting a mini king salmon! the fish was huge when we got it into the boat, it was almost 20" and just over three pounds. then we caught a couple just over 12" and it was fun but just not the same as those big ones. caught one more 17" right as the wind and rain picked up and decided to call it a day. The fishing was good and the big ones were unreal to fight. The bite is not on fire yet but think it is picking up. only saw a few other boats on the water today. Fished from 20 to 70ft deep but was the most productive at 45 to 55ft. pink was the color to use for flashers and hoochies. it was a great day and cant wait to get back out there.

I decided to take the boat for a spin and try my luck at trout. I launched at russell's landing around 08:00 and headed for little american. I found an area close to the dock, and anchored off. Took a little time, but was rewarded with 2 nice rainbows. The biggest was 19 inches. My biggest trout ever. I was using gulp chunky chart powerbait, seemed to work this time. I am thinking I will be back!! Next time I hope to do a little kokenee fishing with the downrigger also.

So with the weather promising to be a record breaker, figured it would be better to work from the boat instead of a hot car so ran home at 1pm and grabbed the Tin Cup and headed to American Lake. I opted for the float plane launch as I knew the wdfw one was going to be packed with pleasure crafters so dropped the boat in and started my troll on the north end of the lake.

Knowing that with the sun beating down and all the surface activity this would be a 2 down rigger day for me so get ready to set out the rods and realized I left my bait box back in the truck. Now the last time I did that I had good luck; so without any maggots I decided to start out for trout with some gulp worms I had and put on Toni's bloody mary with nightcrawler scent and a perch colored needlefish on the other. Not a lot of action at first which was fine as I was getting a lot of phone calls and had to put order through on my laptop ( I have a sprint card built in so get WIFI anywhere I want) perks of the job! haha

Before I could finish though my rod with the bloody mary goes off and I have my 1st rainbow of the day! Went back around and headed over towards Bill's and picked up another on the perch needlefish. Now I wanted to target kokanee so ran back the boat launch and grabbed my baitbox to go after some kokes!

Started back out on the north end of the lake again this time with the bloody mary still with a the gulp worm and the other with Mikes mini hootchie from Bill's boathouse tipped with pink maggots. Ran the riggers at 28 and 34 and no sooner did I get the second rod down, the first on starts dancing! I pull it off the clip and realize it's the bloody mary with the worm but low and behold, it's a kokanee!! Just as I net it the other goes off but it is a long line release so put both rods back and made my way over past the island towards the marina. Just as I am making a turn towards the VA the rod with perch needlefish goes down and figure I got a nice rainbow but no! It is another kokanee! Crazy!

Got one more on Mike's set up as I was passing picnic point so had my limit by 7pm and need to now get the boat ready for the trip over to Eastern WA this weekend and all of next week.

See you on the water!

My daughter and I went to American Lake we started fishing for trout because she likes to do that first. Then, she got bored, and we started bass fishing for a few hours. I caught three smallies. She asked if we could trout fish again, and I said, "one more dock." She was ok with that. I got to the dock and casted under it my three inch tube. It didn't even make it to the bottom, and my line started tightening up. I set the hook, fought it for few minutes, and landed her. I was done after that. Took a few pictures and sent her back under the dock. We went trout fishing for the rest of the day. We got two hits on the red wedding ring, and that was it for us. By then, she was done for the day.

Happy Sunday to all!

After having a good run with the Kokes last year, I wanted to see if the bite has turned on yet at American.

I checked the weather reports and anticipated another windy day.....Indeed it was. The sporadic patches of blue sky were a bit misleading and launched the boat! I don't know what the max sustained winds were, but the gusts were interesting as the white caps lasted throughout the afternoon!

Although very familiar with the lake, I figured that I would experiment a bit today.

I wanted to share a few brief observations:
1. Water is staring to warm. Surface temps were low to mid 50s.

2. The fish seemed to be a bit more dispersed than they were last week or even two weeks ago. I did not see the tight groups that I have seen lately. A few pockets of Kokes, but not much significant yet.

3. Most marked fish have been in the shallows....roughly 10-30 feet deep and grouped along the entire eastern shoreline and northern portion of the lake.

4. Success today was found paralleling fairly close to shore, sometimes even inside of the no wake buoys. Of course depending on water depth, winds, traffic, obstacles and maneuver area.

5. Caught three today, but no Kokes. Two fish on UV type dodgers, two on a UV light green Macks Wedding Ring tipped with a maggot.
The second, largest fish hit a Pink Splatter tied to a homemade red hootchie with a Macks smile blade, tipped with a maggot. He put up a great fight and struggled to get him in the net and steer the boat single-handed. It wasn't pretty, but got the job done! All fish caught with wire from 20-25 feet. Dues to winds, speed was a bit higher, erratic and all hit between 1.2-1.6 MPH.

6. Picked up a female Mallard hitchhiker who wanted to fish with me and made herself right at home!

In conclusion, I did not find any Kokes to tangle with, but there are plenty of other fish that are willing to bite.

Hope that this helps a few that are having difficulties figuring out the fishery. Looking forward to a great year!

Nitrosteve