This report is for a 4-day trip to Banks Lake with my Brother. The first 2 days we had a hard time finding many fish. Caught several perch, a couple bass and a few walleye each day. Our usual spots around the south end of Steamboat Rock, the Poplars and the mid-lake hump weren't producing much. Turns out, we were fishing too deep (16-24 ft). On Sunday (day 3 of our trip), we headed across to the Barker Flats area and found active fish in shallower water (7-12ft). They were quite aggressive and good fighters (as walleye go). We had our 2-person limit of 14-18 inch fish by 11AM. Many of those were caught right in the weeds in 7-8 feet of stained water. The next day we headed to the same area. It was pretty windy-initially from the south, then switching from the west and boat control was more difficult. Fishing wasn't quite as fast but the fish in there were bigger. We still managed a limit of 15-19 inch fish by noon plus caught & released 2 nice post-spawn females: 4.5 & 5.5 Lbs.

Most of our fish came on smile blades with worm harness behind bottom bouncers (both green and silver blades worked). I lost a few fish on slow death hooks so switched to the 2-hook harness and had much better success. Those last 2 days deserved a 5+ rating, but overall, I'll give the trip a 4 since we had to search for a couple days before finding the active fish.