I guess since last post, I have made a half dozen or so forays out onto Dunlop Lake for a look see. Mostly what I have seen is.................nothing. I have stared far to long at depth finders devoid of almost everything. I have covered a lot of water in the process. Even so, I have only been over a small portion of the lake. It is big. Bigger than any waters I have spent much time fishing. The one thing that became very apparent early was.........................I need a bigger boat. This is not the best venue for my pontoon boat.

As I searched for fish, I had decided that I would have most luck initially hunting out bass. So, I checked out the spots which I felt for certain should be holding fish. They weren't. I was more than a little put off. I put in a lot of hours trying to figure out where they were. Thing was, I was fishing in a situation previously unknown to me.

I knew something was up. Those very fishy spots that should hold good fish? Well, all they were offering up were small fish. To immature to spawn. And that was my issue. The bass hadn't started the spawn yet. Having never fished for bass pre-spawn, I had no clue where to look for them. Spawn, post spawn, high summer. etc..................no problem. To be honest, even if I did have a game plan for pre-spawn, I am not sure I would have known that was where they were at. Literally, 20 minutes down the road, in  a smaller lake, the bass were done with this a couple of weeks ago.

Another fish falls to the GFC.

My diligence did eventually pay off however. Fish are starting to do what I expect of them. I finally managed to get my first 'good' fish out of Dunlop. Like the trout from last post, it was a very welcome relief. That I took it topwater on a GFC was just the icing.