I just completed my last 8 day camping and fishing trip to Lake Dunmore. This trip, the bite has really died off quite a bit. I was expecting it kill it. Last time I was there in mid-late August a few years ago, we caught more fish than I can count. But all of the spots that regularly produce fish were dead. I did not even see a lot of bass on the fish finder where they normally are.

 

On Sunday, my kid caught one largemouth. On Monday, I caught a nice 18" largemouth. On Tuesday, I caught two fish including what was probably the smallest bass I ever caught on bass gear - it tried to eat my crankbait but was no larger than it and ended up getting side hooked and my kid caught two. We also broke off a couple of large ones, in the same area and around the same time. He said his was definitely a large bass. Mine could have been a pike, I never got a good look at it but it was strong. Large pike do reside in that area of the lake. When I broke off, my line looked like it was dragged over rocks, and I had recently cut off a couple feet of line that had been, so I'm guessing it was a pike.

 

On Wednesday, we had to get some groceries and firewood. We decided to use that day to go hike some of the trails since time was limited. I have since wished we went out on our kayaks and bought sausages or burgers at the camp store and went for supplies and hiked Thursday or Friday considering how bad the wind was. The plan was to walk around Silver Lake, and then walk up the fire tower trail on the way back, however I wasn't sure which trail was the fire tower trail. We picked a trail and ended up at a lookout with a great view, which I included a pic of. We ended up running down the hill figuring we could get back to the store before they close and get maple soft serve, but they closed at 6 during the weekdays so we didn't make it.

 

On Thursday, we had planned on hitting up the south side and seeing if bass were in the shallows. We went out for a few hours but the wind was brutal, 15-20 constant and 29mph gusts. I could barely pedal against the wind at the bottom end of the lake, we tried another couple of bays to see if the wind was better, but there really isn't a place on the lake to escape a wind blowing from the south. The mountains block out a lot of wind blowing from other directions and also make a little bit of a wind tunnel in places. I've been out with 33mph NW winds and it was tame compared to this. We ended up heading in early and finally getting our ice cream at the camp store.

 

On Friday, we didn't even bother going on the kayaks. We got up late, made our morning tea, read for a bit and had some actually fairly nice downtime. We did shore fish a few hours before dinnertime and my kid caught the best fish of the trip. Maybe even the best fish of the summer between the both of us. I was disappointed it wasn't a 5 or a 6 from the way this thing fought to be fair, I've caught larger bass that fight less.

 

On Saturday, we had heavy rain and thunderstorms, so we went to see the new Conjuring. We're both horror fans.

 

It was still a fun week, but a little sad that I have to wait until June for the next one.

Big head and belly on your boy's bass!

Beautiful scenery and a nice bass, that's a killer combo!