Saw a favorable weather report, so I got out on American Lake to fish for smallmouth. Got out at 7:30 and I saw some healthy vegetation, so I started out trying to cover water with crankbaits, jerkbaits, and swimbaits between 10 and 20 FOW. I was hoping to find actively feeding fish, but had no luck. Moved out and dragged a football jig along the breaks between 20-30 FOW, no bites. Not even rock bass.

Motored back and forth with the sonar and didn’t mark anything until I got to around 40 FOW along some points. Drop-shotted the marks and started to catch some bass. Mix of smallmouth and largemouth with a few big perch in between. Even caught three big rainbows on the drop-shot.

Everything appeared to be well-fed. Ended up catching and releasing a dozen bass, mostly in the 12 inch range. Caught one a bit over 2 lbs and one 3 1/2 lb fish. I lost a few trying to take it easy since I was fishing deeper water. I always keep a descending device in the boat. Took home a few perch for dinner.