Banks Lake ABA

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Maderos on April 30, 2013 at 12:17pm

Yeah, we were camped at Coulee Playland and heard the rumors of 21 to win and 2 other bags at 20lbs!!!!  Looks like banks survived the draw down quite well.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Grimes on April 30, 2013 at 1:07pm

I also heard rumors of a kite sighting in the Punch Bowl.

Impressive weights for sure under horrible conditions

Jeff

Permalink Reply by Jordan Doucet on April 30, 2013 at 2:46pm

I heard rumors of this bag and it completely blew my mind. I was waiting on the official ABA results to come up to post, but I am glad you brought this up Josh. I would love to hear more theories on the increase in weight, if there was some kind of quantity along with quality, mix of brown/green etc...

I have heard guys talk about how the lowering of the lake caused larger fish to cannibalize on the smaller bass along with baitfish and other food sources available. Maybe weeding out these smaller fish has made for a much better fishery. Maybe the lowering of the lake helped some of the weeds and other habitat grow in the shallower areas instead of hurting? I'm not sure, but I know one thing I am looking forward to heading over to banks this summer!

I wasn't able to make it over for this one, but now I'm wishing I did hearing those kinds of bags. Or maybe not now that I think about it 3 bags over 20lbs sounds pretty damn tough to beat.

Permalink Reply by Josh Potter on April 30, 2013 at 3:20pm

I'm not a biologist and don't really know why the fish are so big right now. I know there is more bait than I have ever seen. I have only fished the lake for 5 years so I'm not claiming anything beyond that but it's certainly increased during the time I have fished it. We all knew the lake had some big fish in it just from the weights caught during the draw down. Obviously there are more now.

 

I believe the weights caught during the ABA last weekend had a lot to do with weather. The big bags on Saturday were all LM. Some of that was due to the fact that it was the only safe water to fish. I have never seen Banks as rough as it was Saturday. We were unable to fish a single area we planned on. That being said we still caught over 15 pounds on random stuff, that's how good the fishing was. I think the serious warm up in combination with the wind positioning fish made it a perfect scenario for giant bags. The water is also super high for this time of year and the storm surge probably exaggerated that at the North end.

 

There were some big SM caught as well but the LM definitely ruled the day. I can't speak to Sunday because I was not there but I know it only took 17 to win Sunday whereas it took over 16 just to crack the top 10 on Saturday. I remember arguing about a 20 pound bag with several members last spring. Chad Simon and I thought it could be done last spring, it took a year but now it's been done 3 times in a single day. Every fish you catch is fat as hell and based on the amount of bait I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

Another thing that contributed to the weights was the boat count. I think if you put 80 boats on the water that day those fish get split up a little more. Thos are just my observations.