After Don and I had some very good reasons to think Don Lake would contain a population of largemouth bass we decided to give it a try. Neither of us had ever fished it. We took off in the morning towing Don's Drift Boat. The weather man had promised some very nice weather after a cool, overcast morning. We arrived at Don Lake to find cool, foggy conditions and one fly fisherman already on the lake casting for rainbow trout. Another couple were fishing for rainbow from the shoreline.

We launched the Drift Boat and started fishing the shoreline. We had fished more than half of the shoreline and had not had a strike or seen any sigh of fish except for a couple trout that followed our Rapalas back to the boat. We finally talked to the fly fisherman who was catching several small trout. He said he had never caught a bass in Don Lake and he had fished it a lot. Don Lake is only 14 acres and is quite scenic and has no shoreline homes. It also has a lot of rainbow and the fly fisherman said there are some huge trout in the lake.

Don and I decided that there were probably no bass in the lake and decided to try another lake. On the next lake we found lots of bass. They would strike a Rapala on almost every cast. Most were small but some were probably a pound or more. The weather turned almost ideal - sunny and warm and nearly windless. A great day to be fishing.

---