Last Winter? Camping Trip

I went on my final winter camping trip of 2010 this past weekend. It was touch and go if we would even made the trip up north, as record breaking warm temperatures were threatening the ice. The Lone Chihuahua and Tangerine Boy arrived at my house from the Twin Cities Wednesday night and got some repacking done, told some stories, and hit the hay.

Officer Friendly arrived at 6:00am the next day and we took off for the Gunflint Trail. After a couple stops we arrived at our destination lake. There was absolutely no snow in the woods. It was 50 degrees and windy. The ice had pulled away from the landing enough that we couldn't get on the ice pack. I wandered around and finally found a spot in the shadow of the shore that we could use to get in the lake. We made the decision to just camp in the parking lot instead of going onto the lake to find a campsite. I didn't want to walk 3 miles only to find out that we couldn't find a spot to access the shoreline to camp. We hit the ice to fish near the parking lot. The ice was still about 20 inches thick and fairly solid, but it was shrinking and it was water logged. We checked out some points and islands and managed to land four lake trout between us and Officer Friendly caught a bonus whitefish. We set up camp on a warm evening and enjoyed venison steaks and mushrooms.

On Friday morning we ate breakfast and were about to hit the lake when a busload of high school seniors arrived. 57 kids were planning on camping on the lake. The max group size is 9 in the BWCA, but that didn't seem to bother the leaders. They were head south, so we headed north. After about a two mile walk, we discovered that open water and bad ice in a couple narrows was preventing us from accessing desirable trout water. We were forced to fish in areas that weren't near really deep water (areas with access to deep water is generally better for lake trout). After a bit, Tangerine Boy and the Lone Chihuahua gave up and headed back to deeper water near the landing. Officer Friendly and I stuck it out in the shallow area, fighting off the cold, gray, windy day. It paid off. We each caught several trout, including 2 26 inch and 1 25 inch fish. We wandered back to the main lake and found that our associates had caught nothing. Just after we arrived, however, Tangerine Boy caught a nice trout on a tip-up. I jigged up another trout just before we called it a day. It was corned beef and cabbage for supper-a wonderful meal provided to us by a co-worker.

On Saturday, after a cold night, we all headed back to the hole that Officer Friendly and I had done so well in the day before. We set up Tangerine Boy and the Lone Chihuahua on our holes and Officer Friendly and I went to a new area to fish. I immediately hit a hot streak-jigging up four nice trout in the first 1/2 hour. As I was fighting the last fish, a nice 25 incher, my tip-up went off, and after landing the trout on the jig rod, I went and caught the one on the tip-up too. It was lucky streak. It slowed after that, so we entertained ourselves on the cold, sunny, and windy day by playing on the clear, slippery ice surface. Throwing a frisbee disc on the bare ice meant it would go forever before stopping. We also used our safety picks and ski poles to propel our sleds down the ice. The Lone Chihuahua also played a game where he let his chair blow away down the lake and he chased it for a long time before catching it. The rest of us declined to play that game. The Lone Chihuahua finally caught another trout that afternoon, but that was it. We went back to the main lake for the 5:00 bite and it again paid off, with the Lone Chihuahua and I each jigging up nice trout. Supper was the world famous Tangerine Boy's wife's secret family recipe chili. Delicious.

On Sunday, the Lone Chihuahua and Tangerine Boy packed up and headed home. Officer Friendly and I fished near the landing for a couple hours and she caught 2 more trout. We packed up at noon and hit the road, stopping for lunch at the Gunflint Tavern. It was a good trip to end the year, even though we we unable to reach our original destination.

Nature Moment: On the way north at the beginning of the trip we spotted a lone wolf along the highway. It was in the same area as we saw a wolf two weeks ago.