The path to Donna’s Lake within 100 yards of Smoky Lake Lodge, yet the lake seldom fished. A short boat ride across the channel and a 300-m portage / climb makes it easy to reach. Ever-changing – from a pike-only lake, to one dominated by smallmouth bass, and, more recently, a good mix of both largemouth and smallmouth bass – Donna’s Lake is easily fished in a couple of hours, making it ideal for an early morning or evening outing. A canoe or small boat is kept at the lake for the use of Smoky Lake Lodge guests.

Donna’s Lake is shallow and weedy at one end, deeper and rocky at the other extreme. It has excellent weedlines and some shoreline cover which seems always to hold bass. The deeper section “down the lake” offers more rock and fast-breaking shorelines. Donna’s Lake bass are definitely shoreline-oriented, but there is one mid-lake hump at the far end that always harbours the lake’s biggest smallmouth. Wherever there is broken rock in deeper water, smallmouth bass are sure to be on the prowl for crawfish-type or live baits. Plastic worms, a topwater plug, and a spinnerbait are all that are needed to catch bass here – smallmouth and largemouth alike.