Getting no bites in American seems to be the norm for me. I located two small schools but nobody there wanted to play.

Last year I realized that my fish finder would showed large schools of fish at times, and individual or few fish at other times. Why would they school up? I tinkered with the FF settings until “bait balls” showed up.

During the past year I took a few dozen fish finder screen photos of schools, and they all resemble the one I took yesterday. Namely, fish surrounding or in the midst of “bait balls.” The photo showing a temp of 44.9 was from yesterday. The photo showing 56.3 degrees was from last spring, the 72.4 temp photo from last summer.

So, what are these “bait balls”? From what’s mentioned in the WDFW’s survey report about American Lake dated November 26, 2014, I conclude the bait is zooplankton. Nutritious, plentiful, easy to catch. The department mentions primarily four kinds: Daphnia, Rotifer, Copepods, and Bosminidae, and used six pages to discuss the lake’s zooplankton. In that survey, WDFW states that zooplankton densities were high in the winter months. My series of fish finder photos suggests that their densities vary seasonally but they are prevalent during other parts of the year. At least last year. Maybe the fish would rather eat zooplankton than chase my lures/baits?

By the way, yesterday there was a cormorant trapped inside one of the WDFW net pens at the Army marina.

---