You make plans and then Mother Nature steps in and throws a kink in it. I was planning to fish Banks Lake last week, but it didn’t happen. Instead of two trips to Banks Lake I wound up fishing much closer to home and having a great time anyway.

I told you my daughter Whitney loves to fish Banks Lake. She has great luck catching walleye and smallmouth bass. She also likes to take swim breaks while we are on the water, and that was the plan for last weekend. However, it poured down rain on Saturday, so we had to come up with something else to do. We went to the Pybus Farmer’s Market and got some Quincy corn and Manila clams for dinner. Then we drove to Sunnyslope to visit Ohme Gardens, something she has wanted to do for years. The rain held off long enough for us to explore this very special place with vistas of the Wenatchee Valley. On Sunday I took her to Fish Lake. We had fished here before, but never for perch. I picked a spot out in the middle of the lower end of the lake, and we tossed out our hooks baited with chunks of nightcrawler. There were plenty of perch around and she had a blast. The sun came out, the wind died down, and we watched both a bald eagle and ospreys pluck fish from the lake. I sent her home with a bag of perch fillets for dinner—Yum!

Mabel Jima was visiting her grandparents, Tom and Diane Verschuren, who live in Dryden, and I wanted to take her fishing while she was here. This 10-year-old is an accomplished angler who catches fish from the dock at her home on Lake Sammamish. Fish Lake is close to our home in Leavenworth, and I figured we could entertain her with perch fishing. It was a bit breezy when we arrived at the lake, but nothing like what I had been dealing with on Lake Wenatchee during sockeye season. I drove the boat out to where I usually find schools of perch, and looked and looked but didn’t really find anything. Finally, I just shut down the big motor and put the bow mount down on Anchor Mode. We baited our hooks with pieces of nightcrawler and tossed them out. I immediately hooked a perch and soon we were all hauling in fish. Mabel got the hang of it and even took the perch off the hook and dispatched them with the fish bat. We went through a tub of crawlers and caught over 40 nice perch. She had a great time and looks forward to another trip to Fish Lake soon. This week’s photo is of Mabel with one of the perch she caught at Fish Lake.

I had two trips to Banks Lake planned for this week. Unfortunately, the weather caused the cancellation of both trips. I will get there soon though. It is one of my favorite places to fish here in Central Washington. Not only have I had good success here catching walleye and smallmouth bass, but it is also uniquely scenic. I like to take people to Banks that have never seen it before. They are in awe of the basalt cliffs that line the shores, and the views of Steamboat Rock are spectacular. I spend most of my time fishing for walleye from Million Dollar Mile up to Jones Bay. I will not only be describing the locations that my friends and I like to fish on Banks, but details on the methods we use to catch them. Through my videos I hope to give anglers that haven’t been to Banks enough information to give them a jump start to successful fishing for walleye.

I have talked about how much fun I have casting for trout in our area streams. The experience puts me in a relaxed state of mind. When I am on the Icicle, upper Entiat or Kettle rivers, I think of nothing else but where to place my next cast. The anticipation of a trout coming up and swatting my fly keeps me in focus and in the moment like nothing else. When I tell people about how much I love fly fishing, some of them remark that it sounds like something that would take a lot of time to learn and could be costly. The truth is that casting flies on small streams doesn’t require sophisticated casting technique and a fly rod, reel and floating line really doesn’t cost more than to get set up for fishing for salmon on Columbia River. Like many fly fishers that have been at it for years, I have a huge number of flies that I have collected for all types of fly fishing, from trout to steelhead and even bonefish and tarpon. To effectively fish our small streams though you can fish on all of them with only a Parachute Adams, Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator and a Renegade. My brother in law Tom Verschuren fished the Icicle last weekend and reported that the steam is in ideal shape for easy wading and fun fishing.

I ended my sockeye season on Lake Wenatchee last week and brought my boat home. Now the work starts. Before I can get ready for another fishery I need to first get my sockeye gear sorted out. There are broken leaders scattered in the gunnel trays, lead balls to be sorted by size, rods to be stored, and the overall clutter cleaned up. The deck of my boat is surprisingly clean, mainly due to the excellent washdown system in this Smoker Craft. It took a while to sort out all the sockeye gear, and it is important that it goes somewhere that I can find it when the season comes up next year. I am used to switching out gear to change what I need for different fisheries. I will be loading my walleye gear into the boat. My friend Brian Nielson is going to help me do videos on some of the best places to fish for walleye on Banks Lake and Potholes Reservoir.

I am really eager to do some walleye fishing, and to do some videos on where to catch them. Look for some new shows to watch very soon!