I spent the past 4 days camping at Banks Lake enjoying the hot sunny weather. I'm not a big bass/walleye fisherman, so wasn't really expecting to do so well. Temps were in the 80's-90's, with little wind and dead calm most of the time to ripping 50 mph winds that came up in 2 mins. I've sure experienced some strange weather on this lake. Not a lake to be out in a small boat too far from shore.

I had my kayak, so had to watch the weather. First morning out I headed out to the far west edge of Barker Flats hoping to catch some smallmouth. Picked up 6-10 in a short time along the rocks fishing a home made spinner. Mostly small 8-14 inch fiesty fish that I c&r. Looking for something larger I cast into deeper water and felt a heavy tug. There wasn't much of a fight, so was surprised to see about a 20 inch walleye. I wasn't planning on keeping any fish, so let that one go. Next cast another heavy tug. The twin of the last fish. I caught a 14-22 inch walleye on just about every cast for a good hour. The wind started to come up, so I had to high tail it back to camp. Only a few boats out fishing. Maybe the weather was too hot?

Every time I went out over the next few days I caught dozens of sm and many more walleye. I lost a bass of 4-5 lbs right at the boat, so that sucked. Packing up to leave yesterday my dog was bitten by a rattler, so he's at the vet getting emergency care. Fantastic fishing, but the ticks and rattler put a damper on the trip big time.

Joe Stegner

6/7/2009 8:18:00 PM

We spend a lot of time in the area hunting and our dogs had barb wire cuts and porcupine problems, so knowing the locations of vets is handy (Moses Lake & Quincy). We keep out dogs in camp during the summer, and they stay relatively tick free. Use soft soap to coat the ticks and they release in a minute. That is a easy way to extract them. I had 2 dozen ticks on me after fishing in the seep lakes. Good luck-- J Stegner

Keith

6/7/2009 9:32:00 PM

Man sounds like a good time fishing. Hope your dog is going to be ok.

cinatikid

6/8/2009 9:01:00 PM

use skin so soft by avon insects hate it. make ticks very difficult to latch on even on dogs

Fish On!

6/8/2009 11:39:00 PM

Brought my dog Rocky home from the vet tonight. He's doing ok, but in pitiful shape. I never knew how nasty a snake bite can be or how expensive! OUCH. I"m seeing many more snakes in E.WA the past 10 years, so be very careful. Ticks have been horrendous too the past 3 years. I had given Rocky Frontline about 5 weeks ago and should have followed up at 4 week intervals. I redosed him several days into the trip, but I it takes a couple days to work through his system and be effective.

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