With the rivers in our region raging at high velocities, instead of getting after summer salmon and sockeye I chose the placid waters of Banks Lake to do my fishing on July 1st. A good friend told me about an epic day he had there just a couple of days earlier, when he landed 29 walleye. I wanted to get in on that action. Tom Verschuren and I launched at Northrup and started fishing at an area just below Steamboat Rock. We trolled a variety of lures at different depths and only landed one smallmouth bass. I tried Barker Flats for a while and then went bass fishing. This had happened to me more than once before. I get a great report on walleye fishing and by the time I get there the fish have disappeared. That’s walleye fishing. We did have some fun catching smallmouth bass on Banks. I caught fish on everything from Senkos to crank baits to topwater lures. It is really fun to see smallmouth come up and smack a topwater plug. So exciting! I am going to wait a little longer for salmon fishing. I want to see more fish coming over the dams in our area.
We caught some dandy smallmouth bass fishing the shoreline at Banks Lake.