My brother Rick and I were both eager to get back up to Banks Lake. We had a terrific summer catching walleye, and we wanted to see if the fall bite had begun. We put in at the Million Dollar Mile launch, as usual, and tried our luck trolling crank baits up the shore line. We just weren’t getting any bites, and even when we tried running our baits on side planers our luck didn’t change. So off to Barker Flats we went. By then a pretty stiff wind was blowing and although we were in the weeds a lot we were getting hits. I don’t know how many fish we missed, but we burned through a bunch of worms. We tried crank baits again for a while, hoping the fish would bite more aggressively, but nope, they weren’t interested. I send Rick home with a 17 ½- and a 19 ½- inch walleye and I headed for a meeting in Pateros. I made a stop at Coulee Playland and saw Aulin Smith, who runs the kokanee program on Banks Lake. He said kokanee are being caught in numbers that rival the best catches back in 2004 and 2005. Could be worth a try.