Jim and Greg: Banks Lake - 5/15-16

I joined Jim for some fishing at Banks Lake. We fished for 3 hours on Friday evening and caught 4 short walleye, a couple perch, and a few smallmouth. On Saturday, we fished for 10 hours and caught 40 walleye (only 2 keepers), a couple perch, a few smallmouth, and a 17 inch largemouth. The water temperature was in the low 60s. Our weather was ideal! It was a bit breezy out of the north on Saturday morning, but was almost calm by late morning.

More info for club members:

Here is what worked well:

• Fishing Barker Cove in 15 to 25 feet of water produced our fastest action for walleyes. Waves in the morning stirred up a mud line in Barker Cove and the walleyes were stacked up. We spent 2 to 3 hours pulling bottom bouncers with crawlers and Berkley Gulp Crawlers. The Gulp may have worked a bit better than the real thing. Ripping blade baits produced several fish. Trolling a three-way rig with tiny floating crank baits may have been the most effective method of all.
• Trolling bouncers across from Coulee Playland in 35 to 50 feet also produced consistent action. There were 50 boats in this area, so we left after 2 hours to try to find bigger fish.

Here is what kinda worked:

• Trolling bouncers on road beds near Poplar Point and Rose Bush only produced a few fish.
• Throwing shallow diving crank baits in the Devil's Punchbowl. We tried shallow early in the morning and late in the evening. We got 3 in the evening and 1 in the morning along with some bass.

What did not work:

• Trolling planer boards in Devils Punchbowl did not work. We could not figure out the proper depth to keep our crank baits in the strike zone but out of the weeds.