Fished for Kokes from about 9:00 - 12:30. Second trip to American Lake looking for kokanee and on trip #1 all I got was trouties. This time I was armed with an arsenal of new gear and new information.

Started out the day trolling a UV Sling Blade dodger in the glow pattern with a UV Pink Wiggle Hoochie on a surface line (5' - 10' depth) and a Signature dodger in UV with Watermellon spots and a Bill Herzog American Lake Special rig (Sportco) on the downrigger at about 28'. Trolled for the first 20 - 30 minutes with no bites so I decided to start experimenting with a selection of bait on both rigs. The surface line was tipped with plain shoepeg corn on both hooks while the rigger line was tipped with combo of plain and pink shrimp oiled corn on the top hook and Gulp maggot on the lower hook. Average trolling speed was 1.2 according to final GPS summary.

This produced the first fish of the day, a cookie cutter hatchery brat 'bow on the surface line. The fish was released to come back when he is fatter. After another bite that didn't get hooked on the surface line I chose to switch the surface line and rigger line (running the sling blade deep and the signature rig shallow). I also headed toward the island and just as I got there the surface line went down. Herzog's American Lake Special cashed-in my first American Lake kokanee, a fine specimen of 12", and onto the stringer he went. I got everything back in order and started trolling to the south end of the island (counterclockwise pattern) and the downrigger line went off. This produced another kokanee plumper than the first and coming in at 13.5" and she joined her cousin on the stringer.

On two successive trips around the island I managed two more take downs on the surface rod (one of the two was a massive-aggressive pull down) but neither of them got pinned - drat! Eventually I swithched out the signature dodger for a pink and nickel 50/50 sling blade dodger and trolled back to the north side of the lake and back toward the boat ramp. This produced another planted rainbow which served to knock the skunk off of my new kokanee rod/reel combo that I was using for the first time. This trout was also released.

Final tally in 3 hours 37 minutes of fishing was 7 strikes, 4 fish hooked, 2 trout to the boat and released, 2 kokanee to the boat and kept. All-in-all a good day and I'll be back to experiment some more!

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