Banks Lake once supported a popular and successful fishery for kokanee and various warmwater panfish that has declined in recent years.  The limiting factors for these and other species need to be determined if Banks Lake is to maximize its contribution as a fishery providing harvest as mitigation for the loss of anadromous salmon above Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams.  The limiting factors to be examined include exploitation, water quality, habitat, food limitation, entrainment and predation.  We will conduct annual creel surveys to determine if harvest rates limit species-specific production.  We will link environmental conditions to habitat use to understand the physical and chemical limitations of the system.  We will estimate zooplankton biomass and production to establish the potential of the forage base and carrying capacity for various planktivorous fishes.  Predator prey interactions between piscivore and prey-fish will be quantified through diet analysis and bioenergetics modeling.  The loss of fish from Banks Lake through the power generation facility will be monitored with entrainment nets to determine if fish loss limits fish populations.  We will utilize different kokanee and rainbow trout rearing and release strategies to evaluate recruitment to the fishery and escapement to release sites.  Escapement monitoring at several shoreline and inlet locations will indicate if spawning habitat is isolated due to periodic fall water elevation cahnges.  Finally, we will provide management recommendations to WDFW and BPA regarding harvest, slot limit, stocking numbers and timing.  The goal these actions will be to maintain a quality fishery for large predatory species (walleye, bass, and burbot) while simultaneously maximizing panfish and salmonid harvest opportunities.