Just returned from a 4 day trip to Banks Lake and the fishing was on fire! The weather patterns were completely stable, we never saw a drop of rain, or even much wind, it was absolutely beautiful and the fish were aggressive. The water temps fluctuated daily between 60 to 64 degrees, and the smallies were coming in hot to the shoreline although they had not actually gone on beds for the most part, from what I could tell. We focused all of our efforts in about 1-6 feet of stained water with alot of BIG boulders, and no margin for error unless you want to paint the big rocks with a chunk of your boat. You pay the price in gear as well when you power fish through this stuff as shallow as we were, and my price was about $100 in Lucky Craft LV 500's and another $50 in Crystal Craw speedtraps (retrieving these back from a boulder snag in this area is not an option) but my buddy and I landed 35 smallies on Friday, 20 more on Saturday and 15 more Sunday, and this wasn't the typical dinkfest either, these fish were just moving up, they were fat, and most were very bright golden colored with the dark orange eyes, which to me usually means a fish that's been deep for awhile, and has just moved in off that first break from the spawning areas. By far the LV500 in aurora shad and the crystal craw speedtrap were the top producers, but I caught them on just about everything I threw including 1/2 oz spinnerbaits, swimbaits and jerkbaits. It seemed like you had to be fishing fast to get those reaction strikes, we were burning everything we threw back to the boat, and banging them off, around and through every boulder in the area. We only slowed down a few times to try some different soft plastics and finesse stuff, but it didn't take long to realize the reaction baits and power fishing were the deal.

Talked to a few other fisherman staying at Steamboat but most were targeting Walleyes, so not sure how the other bass guys fared but we sure whacked 'em! Also talked to a really nice couple over there who were from the midwest (like me :) ) and said they were on this site alot. I gave them a bunch of tips on what was working for us but didn't see them again afterwards....if you happen to be reading this, I hope you had some success. :)

There is a big annual memorial day tournament over there next week, and I would expect a ton of fish to be on beds by then, so I'm sure a bunch will be caught and brought to the scales. We never got around to chasing largemouth this trip, we just couldn't bring ourselves to leave the smallies, but I'll bet they are on fire right now as well.

Good luck to the guys going to fish the memorial tourney!
Tight lines,
Dave

David Watkins
Dave's Bass Fishing and Instructional Guide Service
WatkinsBassFishing.com
WashingtonLakes.com Official Sponsor

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