This is a report for technically last Monday AND Tuesday even though Monday was mainly a sightseeing endeavor. First trip ever to Banks Lake for myself and my wife and unfortunately we were greeted by the prior weeks 3 foot drawdown and a near 20 degree temp drop. oh well. We camped at the Steamboat Rock State Park and loved it! Beautiful park and very beautiful area. We spent the first night, as we arrived in the afternoon time, exploring the Devil's Punchbowl area and just outside of there and along the highway towards Castle Rock. Caught some smallies along the road on grubs, nothing over 2lbs. We were off the water before dark as we wanted to get fed, rest and set up for the next days fishing.

Tuesday, we launched and ran for Devil's Lake. What a cool area! Cliff diving would be fun here as the water adjacent to a few rock walls was 120 feet deep. I went towards the back and worked the area over with a grub, spinnerbait and a couple cranks. Picked up a couple more small fish on the grub and that was it. Dinks were nibbling almost every cast and half the time nipping the tails off the grubs. I switched to a drop shot for a bit but never got bit. We headed south from there down and around Goose Island and just cruised the area for a moment and leaving as we decided to go fish in the shadow of Steamboat Rock instead. The wind was picking up a bit out of the south and beginning to whitecap the water so once again we relocated to the area directly north of the mouth of the Punchbowl.

More dinks here and the heat was coming on so we decided it was sightseeing time and headed north. Spent some time beached and walking the sandy shore looking at tracks and scenery near The Causeway, then drove east, did a little fishing along the rocks especially after hiseeing about a 5lb smallie near the rock wall just below the North Dam! More small fish here. We drove back down to the Castle Rock area and had lunch as the wind pushed us along.

My wife spotted something "flopping" in the water and pointed it out to me....I asked her if she wanted to go check it out and she said yes, so off we went. It looked like a hawk of some sort at first, using it's wings to pull itself across the top of the water frantically. As we neared, it swam towards us, obviously it wasn't where it wanted to be! I took my outer shirt off and threw it over the bird as I grabbed it and pulled it aboard, LOOK AT THOSE FEET!! was all I could say as it tried to bite me a couple times through my shirt draped over its head. My wife got a quick lesson in how to operate the boat (shifting didn't go well, ouch) and we motored over to shore to release the bird.

As we beached I uncovered what we now deemed was a juvenile osprey, very wet and very tired, the bird now refused to leave the safety of the vessel and became extremely tolerable of us humans lol. After some coaxing didn't work I decided to go manual mode and again draped my shirt over the bird and helped him on to shore. As the bird got to it's feet following a misstep on the rocks and a tangle in my shirt we noticed a small abrasion on the left wing, perhaps he clipped a rock as he swooped in for a fish?! Either way, it was time for us to go so I pushed us off and we motored out about 50 yards to finish eating and keep an eye on him hoping he would dry out and fly away.

After about an hour we motored off with the bird still standing in the same place. About 3 hours later we returned and the osprey hadn't moved. At this point I pretty much felt he was not in good shape but there wasn't much we could do. I caught him a couple small fish to eat and relocated him farther up the hill near some brush in hopes he wouldn't tumble back into the lake. We named him 'Huk' after the shirt I threw over him and we were on our way, letting nature take its course. I don't like interfering with nature whenever possible but in some cases it just seems like doing something is the right thing to do. I imagine he is most likely coyote poop by now but whenever we go back I will always wonder if he actually made it or not? Took some amazing pics of him and got almost the whole thing on GoPro.

As it was getting late afternoon we returned to the Punchbowl and fished the roadside rocks picking up more dink smallies. as we got near the back the grass was getting thick in spots so out came the largemouth gear and I finally boated a 2+ largie on a spinnerbait near a weed edge! YAY! Fished the area for a while wishing the whole time the lake was at full pool, man what an area!! Caught one more largie the same way after flipping the thick stuff for about an hour. Decided we were done and headed to the launch.

We will definitely be back next Spring! I want to hit this lake at full pool and prespawn! What amazing scenery and structure, such a cool lake and we only scratched the surface.

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