My first trip of the 2012 season!!! My buddy Pat & I headed to Bank's Lake hoping it would be warmer than the Spokane area lakes. We launched @Coulee City around 8:00 & the water temps were between 48-50 degrees. Not knowing the lake at all was a bit of a hindrance but the morning turned out great for this time of year/temp. We headed for the first wind blown point we saw and started throwing jerkbaits, dropshot rigs, etc with no success. Maybe an hour later we started to mark fish 8-15 feet deep in a boulder strewn cove. I started throwing a Rapala DT-10 in orange/red craw & within an hour had boated 8 Smallmouth. The key to getting bit was keeping as much bottom contact as possible, combined with a very erratic, fast retrieve. I fished it much like a jerkbait minus the pauses, really burning it in. The big fish of the day was around 4 lbs with the others between 2 & 3 lbs, with the majority just over 2 lbs. Pat also landed 4 Smallmouth in the same cove using a Lucky Craft crankbait in orange craw. An hour after the first bite we'd fished out our spot, & never ended up finding alike enough spot to duplicate our pattern. All in all we had a great time cranking up our first Smallmouth of the 2012 season.

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