What a lake! I NEVER tire of fishing here. The weather was o.k. The few clouds made it comfortable weather to fish. The morning was very windy but, although it made it somewhat difficult to maneuver the boat, I found that this was the best fishing I experienced during my week at Banks. I will never pass up a day of bass fishing due to wind.
I fished both morning and afternoon but did best in the mornings using dark plastics on the bottom. I caught smallmouth on Senkos, grubs and tubes. Most fish were caught in about 12-18 feet of water on black or dark brown 4 inch grubs on 1/4 oz. jigheads that I painted black. My buddy used unpainted jigheads and I outfished him about 3 to 1. After he started coloring his jigheads black with a permanent marker I keep in my tackle, he started catching fish as quickly as I did.
The bass we caught were between 10 and 18 inches long with a few smaller ones in there as well. I LOVE THIS LAKE!

I saw many fishermen fishing for and catching some very nice walleye as well. The ones I saw were caught on the back side of Steamboat Rock. I had every intention of fishing for walleye, however, the bassin' was so hot I could not pull myself away from it, even for a few hours.

Good luck to all and remember, if you happen to catch a largemouth in Banks Lake, PLEASE release it. There are so many smallmouth if you wish to keep fish for a nice meal but the fisheries department is trying to increase the largemouth population in Banks. That is one reason that the catch limit for smallmouth is 10 with no minimum size limit.

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