I've lived in Lakewood my whole life, but only fished American Lake a few times- usually in a canoe or rowboat. That works ok, but it takes a long time to get around anywhere. So this year, I decided to buy a larger boat with a decent motor and really concentrate on learning to fish American.

I bought a decent running boat and took it out a few times, then over the winter tore it down and rebuilt it. Sunday was the "maiden voyage" of the renovated boat.

My buddy and I got on the water around 10 am, and headed across to the far side of Silcox. We were running two downriggers- one at 45 feet and one at 50 feet. I was using a small splatter pink dodger, with a green hootchie behind it. My hootchie rigs are on fairly short leaders, about 2.5 times the size of the dodger, and I have smile blades in front of them, with a few beads in front of that. My buddy ran the same setup, only with a watermelon dodger and a pink hootchie setup. Both rigs were tipped with white shoepeg corn, and both dodgers had herring oil applied.

We trolled back and forth on the kicker motor (5 horse) very slowly for a few hours. I tried a few different depths, but wasn't seeing much on the finder. We were seeing a good amount of surface activity- there appeared to be a mayfly hatch of some sort happening, but I didn't bring my fly rod. I tried trolling a lake troll rig for a while, but then later switched to just a simple spoon-style lure. (this was on my second rod, not on the downrigger.) I have a 2-pole endorsement, but my buddy doesn't so we had 3 poles working.

After a couple hours, we chatted with a couple nice gents in an Alumaweld boat. They already had 2 trout and 2 kokanee, so we asked them for some tips. We matched their depth (35 feet) and suggestion for trailing length (pretty far back behind the downrigger). I noted they were using dodgers about the same size as ours with similar leader length.

This continued on for most of the day- I saw them catching several more fish, and we didn't get so much as a nibble. I tried varying speed and depth several times, but to no avail. Some days are just like that I guess.

We took a break for a late lunch after a while, and anchored up near the entrance to Little American in the bay just before it. While we ate we used drop shot rigs on 2 rods, using Berklee minnows about 3' off the bottom, and on the remaining rod I floated a few power eggs above an egg weight. My buddy got a few little nibbles but no takes.

At one point while we were sitting there a trout jumped out of the water and smacked into the side of the boat. If the sides of the boat had been shorter we would have had caught it with no pole and no effort.

After about an hour of that with no success, we went back to trolling back between Silcox and the VA. Results were the same as before- no fish. The only real downside was that at one point I was putting my rod in the downrigger and heard a light "sploosh". I looked down, and the handle for my reel was gone! It fell off right into the lake. Oops!

Anyway, it was a nice day to be out and "field test" the new boat. There were plenty of fish around, and I saw several caught, so I'll up my rating to a 2- but we didn't get any ourselves. We got off the water just at dusk- we loaded the boat in twilight and drove out at dark.

ncwflounderer

1/27/2014 12:31:00 PM

keep working it, you will have them dialed in in no time

tmib

1/27/2014 12:52:00 PM

Oh I will, most certainly. One of the biggest motivations for me getting this boat was fishing American Lake. I can go from pulling out of my driveway to backing down the launch in 10 minutes.

I think one factor yesterday was not varying the downrigger depth enough- I did try a variety of depths, but probably should have been changing things up more often.

I'll also make sure and bring my fly rod next time too- the trout feeding on the surface hatch sure looked tempting!

bruceka49

1/27/2014 3:08:00 PM

I've caught a lot of fish trolling with a 1oz kidney sinker and pop gear with a wedding ring.

tmib

1/27/2014 4:13:00 PM

Funny that you say that. On my extra rod for a good period of the day yesterday I ran a kidney weight with a Luhr-Jensen "School-O-Minnows" lake troll rig. I had a hootchie behind it for a while, and a wedding ring behind it for a while.

salmonbarry

1/27/2014 4:52:00 PM

Great to have you out there and you will figure it out for sure! I usually leave my downriggers home until later in the spring as they are usually more up on the surface until around mid April so an ounce to 1 1/2 works well and some guides actually just let the weight of the dodger do the trick! Good luck and hope to see you out there sometime.

Scott in lakewood

1/28/2014 7:17:00 AM

I picked up a Kokanee flatlining Fri. From my kayak. Love fishing American! One thing I find that helps is going slow enough, I think about .8-1.4 mph if I remember right. I used my handheld GPS before, but now with a smartphone there's probably an app. You can use. We will see you on the lake, tight lines! And if your launching on the veterans side and have room let me know!

Rip Lipper

1/30/2014 3:50:00 PM

A #5 gold and black Rapala on 4 lb test with no weight way behind the boat will get those trout you see rising.

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