Jim K: Banks Lake - 5/16-17
Friday, I ended up with about an hour on the water after arriving at the Steamboat State Park late in the day. Devils Punchbowl… fished the flats just inside the main point on your left as you enter the DP… got number of dinks in very short order on a variety of colors of bottom bounced smile blades. Switched to the humps / submerged points on the very South end of DP in 6-14FOW using jigs… swam them, slow dragged them & a few casts casting then snap jigging back to boat. Nothing here.
Saturday. I was on the water early, and nothing hitting at all on smile blades where I caught dinks the night before. Took run to very end of long point out from Poplars in 33FOW. Nothing again using BB’s & smile blades, but then nothing on graph on bottom. Saw several groups of 2-4 fish per group in 15-20FOW as I was trolling. On downscan and sidescan there were very large marks which means good sized fish. Just in case they were roaming walleyes I made two trolling passes using four different crank baits long lined behind the boat… nothing. Hit Northwest corner of the open water by steamboat rock (Birches?)… nothing there on BB & smile blades. Ran to devil’s punch bowl and trolled West roadbed from 10-20 FOW using BB & Smile… nothing. Took run up to dam and jigged… nothing. Seagulls moved in and were working what looked like fingerling trout that were everywhere jumping out of water… again did a hail mary and tried long lining cranks… had one hit (definitely was not bottom). Bottom bounced from inlet South along shoreline to point.. nothing. Ran back to Devil’s Punchbowl thinking I’d use planer boards and shallow cranks, but decided on snap jigging East roadbed as it comes up from 7 to 3 FOW right along the Hwy rip rap… there was a small breeze coming into the reeds there as well by now. Given my luck on bass colored lures last spring, I was using a 3/8oz jig with Trigger-X aggression minnow in baby bass color. Cast as far as I could. Sink to bottom. Rip it, fast sink, rip it, fast sink… repeat. Immediately started hooking up dinks again, had one 22” to the boat & he got off, and had another very good strike in about 30 minutes before I needed to head in.
Overall, I was really in a hunt mode, and didn’t soak any one area for very long. After seeing how the smile bite died from Friday to Saturday with the weather change, I should have definitely fished the reaction bite (jig / aggression minnow) much more in my confidence areas.