Went out to American Saturday to check out some smallmouth action and changed the plan after figuring out that all the fish on the graph were Rainbow trout. I had the pleasure of hooking up with Tim and Andy around 7:30 at the Tillicum boat ramp. My plan was to be there at 6:30 am but it was so cold that it took me an extra 45 minutes just to get thru my frozen gate and free the frozen pin on my trailer. We started fishing a little after 8:00 am and it did take us long to figure out it was going to be a tough smallmouth bite. We started out by looking for schools of Perch in depths of 65' to 30' with no luck. I started seeing a few fish tight to the bottom and the occasional dive by which I assumed were trout. Now when I say tight to the bottom I mean they were belly in the mud tight. I figure that must be a smallmouth, so I drop shot down 35' and game on. I get an instant hookup only to lose the fish before ever seeing what it was. So we continue down the bank and sure enough, we see another mark and power shot down. This time the fish stays pinned and it a solid Rainbow. Needless to say, we change our game plan and it paid off. All I can say is limits weren't the problem, it was deciding whether or not I wanted to clean fish when I got home.
It was one of the best winter days fishing American Lake I've had in a long time. I was happy to share the deck with both Andy and Tim and I'm sure none of us will forget the winter day we spent fishing for smallmouth and limiting on Rainbows.

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