I made good on my promise to take Brian Nielson, of BJs Guide Service, to Banks Lake to do some smallmouth bass fishing last Thursday. He brought along James Beasley, owner of Wicked Lures, and his buddy Rick Graser. Beasley wanted to see if his spinner rigs would catch smallmouth bass and hadn’t given them a good try. They worked. We launched at Northrup and ran over to one of the canyons off Barker Flats. We got some fish in here and Beasley landed a dandy at the northern end of the canyon. We then worked our way down to the area near Rosebush, just up from the Million Dollar Mile boat launch. We spent most of our time fishing the shale slides and boulders near the shore on the west side of Banks and caught a bunch. I was surprised to find a high number of smallmouth beds in some of the spots we fished and even saw some fish on them. This seems pretty late in the spring for this activity and is an indication of our cool spring weather. Both the smallmouth bass and walleye fishing will soon improve as water temperatures rise on Banks Lake.