Small Pleasures

Of course, by "small" I mean Smallmouth. And they are a pleasure... After all, one of the prettiest settings in central Washington also offers some great fishing for mid-sized Bass. On one evening recently, I couldn't keep the fish off my line. I arrived late in the day and only had two and a half hours to fish before dark. I would be heading off for some big trout early the next morning so this brief time slot would have to satisfy me. Let's just say the results were surprising and prove why I keep coming back to Banks Lake: 18 fish in 2 1/2 hours - three of them pushing three pounds and all on various minnow and leach patterns in shallow water. Man, I love Smallies on the fly...

Goodbye to May - We Never Knew You...

The month of May is over and it was almost like we never experienced it. Oftentimes, it offered more of a late-winter feel than spring and all the fishing cycles and activity were late by many weeks. This weekend, however, that delay turned out to be a good thing. I went on a four-day road trip and met up with my eldest, Tommy, and our friend, David Dietrich. We did some fishing in the middle of the state and David talked us into spending a day on Omak Lake. The fish there were still in Spring mode and we found them cruising in relatively shallow water all day long. The water will soon warm into the mid and upper 60's and the fish will begin moving into deeper water but our late spring kept the window of opportunity open even as the month of May ended.

Big Lahontan Cutthroat prowl all over this lake and chow on the abundant bait fish. They can grow to very large sizes but average around 18-20 inches. We used minnow and leach patterns in two to ten feet of water and had steady action. Our biggest went 24 inches and maybe five pounds (photo below). Most that we caught were around 20 inches and three pounds, as seen in the photo of Tommy above. Nice fish...

It was 90+ degrees while we were on the water but the wind blew a bit to keep us cool and we almost had the place to ourselves. Definitely worth the effort and definitely a place we'll find an excuse to get back to...