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American Lake Report
Pierce County, WA

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02/01/2014
41° - 45°
Trolling
Kokanee
Corn
Pink
Cloudy
Dodger
All Day
46° - 50°
02/03/2014
5
2345

What a weekend! Limit on Saturday and a dominant Seahawks SuperBowl win on Sunday. Doesn’t get better than that!
A buddy and I hit American Lake on Saturday to try to scratch out a few kokanee and rainbows. I didn’t think kokanee bite this time of year but reports were already coming out of American showing some success so I figured we’d give it a shot. Didn’t expect much to be honest, except maybe a couple rainbows and I was very happy to be wrong. The fishing was awesome once we figured out what they wanted. We were on the water around 9 and didn’t figure out the right presentation until ~11, consistent bites until we limited out around 2pm after that. We started out with pink/clear hootchies with chrome blades baited with corn and maggots behind DN pink splatter dodgers, we fished these at 20’ and 35’ for about an hour with no bites. My friend switched to an orange/green wedding ring baited with worm/garlic scent to target rainbows and I switched mine out to a small pink wedding ring that had worked well on Meridian kokanee last summer. These didn’t produce anything either. I then switched mine to a mini-shrimp hootchie in clear/pink sparkle with no blade/spinner baited for kokanee and had a fish on within ~5 minutes. In my excitement I managed to really mess up playing that fish and after an ill-advised and completely unnecessary “hook set” (it was a reflex) the fish was gone. We laughed at my stupidity (I had done the same thing to start last kokanee season, you’d think I’d learn) as I baited it back up and sent it back down. 10 minutes later another fish was on, played properly and in the net was a beautiful ~13” kokanee. I couldn’t believe it, made my day right there! We then switched my buddy to the same set up and it was on. We had two not quite doubles with my rod getting hit right as I was netting his fish. We ended up with 8 kokanee and 2 rainbows, all caught around ~35-40’. All the kokanee were 12-14” and fat little beauties. One trout was 11-12” and the other just over 14. Great day!
Oh yeah, a warden was conducting boat inspections to launch, good guy (I had everything except a carbon monoxide sticker I didn’t know was required but he let that slide, will get it this week) and there was a fish checker that inspected and measured all of our fish as we were leaving, she was also surprised to see kokanee this early.
Tight lines all!


Comments

Toni
2/3/2014 2:27:00 PM
Nice report
tmib
2/3/2014 2:54:00 PM
Nice seeing you out there. I was the boat that launched (and got inspected) right about the same time you did, and talked with you about the Carbon Monoxide sticker briefly at the launch.

It sounds like you found fish about the same place we did- everything we caught was in the 30-50 foot range, with most at 35-40 feet down. Everything was in 80+ feet of water though, so we were basically catching them at the halfway mark. Was it the same with you?
kokapaw
2/3/2014 3:01:00 PM
Good job guys and thanks for the report.
Did you stay with the Pink Splatter dodger?
salmonbarry
2/3/2014 8:04:00 PM
Great report Jason!! Nice to see it's starting early and hope to get out and chase those silver bullets soon!
iwilfish
2/4/2014 6:00:00 AM
congratulations on a great day.
I'm afraid I'm a country bumpkin, never fished around the big city lakes. I hope to fish at American lake sometime this year. What the heck is a corbon monoxide sticker? something to do with car emissions?
kokanee_slayer
2/4/2014 6:05:00 AM
Nice Job!!
tmib
2/4/2014 8:51:00 AM
Iwilfish: the CO sticker is required by the state for any boat with a motor: http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/costicker.html
tmib
2/4/2014 8:51:00 AM
Iwilfish: the CO sticker is required by the state for any boat with a motor: http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/costicker.html
iwilfish
2/4/2014 9:18:00 AM
I don't have an outboard yet. I just use my electric trolling motor or arm power. thanks for the info I'll make sure I get one when I get an outboard. I'm assuming you don't need one with a n electric motor
jd39
2/4/2014 10:03:00 AM
Thanks All!
Cool, was curious if that was you when I saw your posts tmib, happy to see you got on some fish too! Yeah most of our fish came in ~70-80' of water.
kokapaw - yep, fished the pink splatter the whole time. That's my go-to dodger and I fish it the vast majority of the time because it seldom fails. The watermelon and polka dot/clown dodgers are also good ones.
iwilfish - some politician probably had a family member that makes the CO sticker, can't understand why it'd be required in an completely open boat otherwise. Apparently we need to be warned not to suck the fumes straight out of the motor or we just might have tried it :-). Gotta laugh at this stuff sometimes. Still appreciate the game warden not making it a big deal. I'm sure you're fine with your electric without the sticker. I haven't had much success using my electric on American though, they seem to want the troll a little faster then my electric can push my livie around (it's a heavy boat for it's size, ~350lbs at 12').
Tight lines you guys!
kenbarb
2/5/2014 10:46:00 AM
Beautiful fish, and nice report. You did not mention anything about your fishfinder, were you using it to locate the Kokanee?
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

Phone: (509) 687-0709