The last month of the 2019 season has arrived, and there are some really great options available to anglers in December. Some of the region’s lakes closed at the end of November and others opened at the first of December for winter fishing. Many of our year-round lakes offer the best trout fishing of the year in the winter. So bundle up and get out there and put some big fish in the freezer.

I have been saying for years that Banks Lake offers terrific fishing for rainbow trout in the late fall and winter. For some reason I just haven’t been able to get out and take advantage of it. Well, I got an e-mail from Tim Riechmann, of Electric City, last week, and he invited me to come up to Banks and try the trout fishing. He has been getting great catches of big rainbow and wanted me to see this myself. Of course, I jumped at the chance. The weather forecast for last Saturday was for clear skies and calm water, so we planned to meet at Coulee Playland that morning.

Tim had the boat in the water when I arrived and we didn’t leave the dock until after 9 o’clock, as he has found that the bite often doesn’t get going until about 10:30. Tim pointed the boat down lake, took us around the corner in Northrup Bay and ran over to Devils Lake. This is where he was finding good numbers of rainbow. What was really exciting about this fishery is that the trout were ranging in size from 20 to 28 inches. For some reason the big rainbow liked this particular bay.

We started trolling and watching the depth sounder to see if there were any trout around. Tim had a crawdad pattern Rapala Rattlin’ Rap on his rod and he put it way back behind the boat on lead core line. I put the J-9 floating Rapala, which is jointed, in the bright orange with the gold belly on my rod. This had worked great for me on Lake Roosevelt the previous week. I let it out 150 feet on my line counter reel. We settled down in the warmth of the covered interior of the boat and watched the screen. We weren’t seeing many of the big marks that Tim was used to seeing, but we did see lots of fish at about 70 feet. I figured that these were whitefish, which are abundant in Banks, and I knew that they inhabited Devils Lake in good numbers. We also saw some big masses of small bait fish. My guess was these were small perch that should have spawned recently.

A short jerk on Tim’s rod got our attention and a little later another fish took a few yards of line before letting go. Tim likes to do “S” turns to speed up the lures on one side of the boat and slow down the ones on the other side. It was on one of these turns that my rod’s clicker went off. This one was hooked and although it didn’t jump, I could tell it was a good one. Tim slid the net under it and after he got the hooks out, measured it and saw that it was a 21-incher. This was a very hefty fish and we agreed that it was probably pushing 4 pounds.

We celebrated the catch, took a couple of photos and then ran our lines out again. This time Tim put a perch Shad Rap on his line. If the masses of bait fish we were seeing were in fact baby perch, this might do the trick. I had brought along my side planers, so I put my line out 100 feet with the same J-9 plug that had got the first fish, clipped on a planer and then ran it 40 feet out away from the boat. We were seeing more good marks on the sounder now. They were very large arcs and were appearing at the depth that was shallow enough for the fish to see our lures. We hadn’t been trolling that long when my clicker went off again. As soon as I picked up the rod I could tell that I had a much bigger fish. I popped my rod to release the side planer and started cranking. I was making good progress and when my line counter indicated that the fish was about 60 feet behind the boat it jumped—and threw the hook. Durn. No way to know exactly how big that rainbow was but it was certainly bigger than the 21-incher we landed earlier.

Tim was frustrated. He wanted to put me on a bunch of fish. On a good day he was getting three of these big rainbow and on a great day five of them. What was working against us was a very bright sunny day without any wind. He much preferred having a little chop on the surface. I was still pleased to have been able to be out on Banks with Tim. I learned a lot and am eager to get back up there. When I got home and filleted the big rainbow I found it packed with small, baby perch, a baby crappie and daphnia. It had been feeding heavily and still came up and whacked my lure.

So add Banks Lake to where you can catch some big rainbow this winter. Lake Roosevelt is also producing excellent catches of trout. I talked to someone who had a great day catching these rainbow in the bay right next to the launch at Spring Canyon. Next time I go I think I will launch out of Keller again and run over and fish above the mouth of the San Poil River. I think I will have a better chance of getting a big kokanee over there.

Winter fishing on Rufus Woods should improve now that they are releasing some water out of Lake Roosevelt. The reservoir has dropped 12 feet now and that always improves the fishing for triploids in Rufus Woods. It also improves the fishing on Lake Roosevelt, as it draws the daphnia that the big kokanee feed on down the reservoir.

There are some great choices for anglers in the winter and I want to remind everyone to check the rules pamphlet to see which lakes open in December. There will be plenty of open water for a while, and then some great ice fishing opportunities later on.