My great ideas for a fishing trip don’t always turn out. I talked my friend Brian Neilson into going to Banks Lake on Wednesday to fish for smallmouth. I saw so many big ones turned in at the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge I thought we would slay them. He agreed to go—if we could also spend some time fishing for walleye. We started our day fishing for walleye around Steamboat Rock and Barker Flats, just getting a couple of bites, but landing nothing. We ran down to one of my favorite areas to fish for bass and I just had one chaser and Brian lost a big one next to the boat. We were just across the lake from Rosebush, so we hopped over there and put out the bottom bouncers and Slow Death Hook rigs, and I ran a worm harness with a Blue Tiger blade. We hadn’t trolled far below Rosebush when Brian’s rod went down and after a good struggle I netted his 21-inch post-spawn walleye. We ran back up and this time he hooked at 23-inch walleye. Not to be outdone, on the next pass I landed a 25-inch walleye. Turns out the walleye fishing saved the day.
I was thrilled with this 25-inch walleye I caught fishing with Brian Neilson on Banks Lake last Wednesday.