I saw some really nice smallmouth turned in at the weigh station at the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, so I wanted to give it a try. I went to Banks last week in Tom Verschueren’s brand new boat. The wind was blowing, so we headed into Devil’s Punchbowl, which is just around the corner from the Northrup launch and in front of Steamboat Rock. The first place we tried produced just one rainbow and Tom had a dandy smallmouth right up to the boat. We ran over to a point along the highway and hit paydirt. Tom landed four smallmouth here, one of which was over 3 pounds. We were casting Bomber plugs in the red crawfish color. We then ran over to Barker Flats but the wind drove us off. We went into Barker Canyon Cove, and at the very bottom end found a small bay that had some fish in it. Tom got a couple and I even landed one. To take a break from casting I suggested we try trolling next to the road in Northrup. To our surprise a 20-inch walleye grabbed my silver Flicker Shad. I am really eager to get back up to Banks when the water warms a bit.