I took a friend up to Banks Lake last week. It was his first time on Banks and he was really knocked out by the big pond. Anyone who sees Banks for the first time is going to be impressed. The basalt cliffs that surround the lake and Steamboat Rock are quite a sight. He was also impressed with the smallmouth bass fishing. This was his first time bass fishing, too and we were into fish right off the bat. We fished the shorelines with a variety of baits and caught fish on all of them. We were constantly getting hits from smaller fish. They were biting the tails off our weightless grubs and every once in a while a fish would just gulp the whole thing down. Not being a bass angler he just wasn’t used to setting the hook in the hard-mouth bass and missed some really good strikes. I set the hook hard enough to send my bait sailing over my head when I miss a fish or it lets go, so I was able to hook and land a lot more than he did, including fish up to about 2 pounds. The good news is that action like this should continue all summer long.