So I haven't really fished American lake much the past few years but with the derby this Saturday thought I would give it a try now that I had the Tin Cup back and running with a new power head installed in the 60 hp Johnson main motor! Rented a slip at the Russel landing marina on Friday so this will be a 2 day report since I needed to get the boat in the water to get moored for Saturday morning. The first 3 pictures will be from Friday and last ones from Saturday.

Friday- May 4th
Got to the Russel landing marina around 10:30 and motored over by the veterans hospital to see if we could pick up some takers and try out some different presentations and try out my new GOFISH underwater camera. I'll try and attach footage but not sure if it will work or not- Put out 2 lead core lines and 1 on the down rigger running out 4 colors and 105 feet on the lead core and moving the down rigger from 25 to 50 feet depending on where where we were marking fish. One note is that we saw a school on the screen around 20 feet down so ran the camera through them and when I checked the footage later saw it was a school of perch!
Picked up some nice rainbows and a really nice kokanee over by the Lakewood boat launch and ended up around 2:30 as the rain moved in so we headed in and were treated to a pair of bald eagles discussing on where to fly for lunch!

Saturday- May 5th
Got to the marina around 5:15 and checked in for the derby then ran over to the Lakewood launch to pick up my fishing partner before the 6 am starting time. Well he was coming from Monroe so did not hear from him by 6 am so started solo trolling across to the island and back marking fish in the 15 to 30 foot range. Pick up a rainbow and lost a real nice kokanee by the island right at the boat before Matthew called and said he was 10 minutes out. Got him in the boat by 8:30 and headed along the shoreline north working our way all around picking up 5 more rainbows and a kokanee before heading in for the weigh in by noon. Had a nice bbq lunch at the bistro before the awards and auction- turns out only 2 kokanee were caught all day between over 50 boats and 180 anglers and we got 1 of the 2 but mine was smaller so won the smallest kokanee award! Fun day all in all and Matthew scored a nice Okuma cold water line counter reel spooled with 12lb mono for $70 on the silent auction!

---