Here's my follow up report for Bank's Lake crappie. Adam Barnes and I made it up there to Steamboat Rock State park to fish the inlet bay known as the "Poplars" because the area is surrounded by all poplar trees. Water temp in the Bay was 54 degrees, perfect for prespawn crappie. We arrived to find three local Bass boats in our spot and a cadre of bank anglers as well. Adam and I started boating some 9 to 11" crappie as from the southern corner of the inlet. the slabs that appeared on my graph were hugging isolated weed patches and we were swimming our jigs just above the those weed tops to score our fish. I pride myself on being an exceptional jig fisher, but today belonged to a lone Russian angler from Auburn in waders who schooled both Adam and I by catching crappie after crappie. He was on the hot spot and I was mesmerized by watching those crappie pull his cork under. I spoke with his daughter about the 9" slot limit and the new 10 crappie possession limit on Banks and it wasn't long before he picked up his fish and left. We eased my jon boat into position and had the entire inlet to ourselves.We had talked prior to the host of the T.V. show "Columbia Outdoors" who was fishing in the Bass Tournament and he watched me catch my biggest crappie of the day, a 13" beauty. He left for weigh in at the last possible moment with just one fish shy of his daily limit. The hot colors of the day for the crappie were clear/salt and black pepper with a fire tiger jighead inserted inside the jig. Adam used red/chart and smoke olive speckle 1 1/2" crappie skirts. Near the tree, we set our bobbers at 3 ft. Adam was unsuccessful at downloading his phone camera Crappie pictures on to this website...I could use some pointers, because my lap top won't print my fish photos on washingtonlakes.com either. later, The Jigmiester.

---