This day was the first time out on Banks for us this season. The weather was very nice all week, warm, sunny and no wind...very condusive for getting the smallies to go on the bite. After leaving our place in Chelan we arrived at the boat launch by the state park around 7 AM.

We headed out and started fishing the "run and gun" fishing I like to do in the morning at Banks. I like this type of fishing because it allows us to fish for the most aggresive fish and larger fish before the sun and other boaters come out. And, after fishing this lake for over 30 years now, we have a nice batch of "honey holes" that we fish....so many actually that it would take all weekend to fish them all.

Sherie and I caught and released 148 smallies today, the biggest one being a little over 4 lbs. that, of course...Sherie caught!! Every time, it seems, that I go fishing with my wife, she catches the largest fish of the day, its getting tiring!!! But I do love it.

The water temp. was 54 in the morning when we started and warmed up to 61 in a few spots by the end of the day.

We were fishing with spinners, small chartreause spinnerbaits and deep diving crankbaits. All of them worked great today. Many times we were getting a fish on almost every cast. We hit area's and spots on the middle part of the lake, around Steamboat state park, and above. The bass were averaging between one to two pounds with 5 in the 3 pound range and one, 4 lbs., 3 oz.

It was very hard to leave the lake today, but, there is always tomorrow!! And of course we had to fillet some of the bass we kept for a great bass fry dinner!!

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