Chief Many-Little-Bottles mans the downrigger
It was an un-laborious Labor Day weekend for the Chief and I as we did a unique little Boundary Waters Canoe Area trip. We ditched the canoes and fished and camped on one of the few lakes in the BWCA that allows motorboats.
We each took care of some odds and ends on Friday morning and met up at the Chief's house around noon. We soon headed north towing his 16 foot Lund with a 25 horsepower motor. The forest service allows motors on our lake of choice, but only up to 25 horsepower. Before too long, we arrived at a lake's boat landing just outside the BWCA. We loaded our camping and fishing gear into the boat and headed north, away from the crowds. After a bit we turned into a bay to the "truck portage" landing. The forest service has an agreement with an operator to bring boats across a road-like portage into the BWCA lake. The operator used to have an old truck, but now just uses an ATV with boat trailer. He has set hours and we waited a little bit, chatting with other adventurers that were also waiting. Before long, we were on the trailer and over the portage and then were zipping down the large BWCA lake, searching for a good campsite. Some of the best ones were taken, but we found a pretty good site on an island and called it home. We set up the tents and tarps and had a snack before heading out fishing during the usually productive evening hours. Unfortunately we caught only one bass and no walleyes, our targeted species. We gave it a real shot, staying well after sunset, but no luck. We headed back to camp, but had a bit of trouble locating it in the dark. We did eventually find our site and were soon eating a supper of steaks and sauteed mushrooms and onions. We stayed up well into the night solving the world's problems one at a time.
After a warm, but comfortable, night, we leisurely ate breakfast and got our gear together. We headed out on a nice sunny day, this time targeting my favorite fish, lake trout. The Chief put on a unique purple spoon on his downrigger rod while I tried a more traditional gold spoon. Nearly immediately, Chief had a strike. He fought a larger fish for a few minutes, but the line soon went slack. Crap! He reeled in his line to discover that he didn't have the spoon anymore, the line had broken. Hmm...a big pike with its line shearing teeth? Or was it a trout and just a bad spot in the line? Either way, we took it in stride and hoped it meant the fish were biting. Chief put on another purple spoon and we continued on our deep water (90 feet on average) attack. After no action, I switched from a spoon to a gold spinner with a salted sucker minnow. The move paid off in short order and I caught a smallish lake trout-not the size we were seeking but a good sign. As we moved into another fishy looking deep hole, the Chief's line released from the downrigger indicating a bite and soon we had a really nice trout (about 7lbs) in the net and on the stringer. Before long, Chief had another bite and he caught and released a twin of his previous trout. Clouds were building however, and thunder began to rumble. The weather was about to change in a big way. We buzzed back to camp and cleaned the trout for supper. We settled into our chairs underneath the tarp when storm announced its arrival with a huge lightning strike, very close by - the second closest lightning strike I have experienced in my life (sometime I will tell you about the closest one). That woke us up a bit. The storm was a good one, lots of lightning, a major downpour of rain, and gusty winds. Before long, things settled down and we were able to enjoy Chief's famous fried lake trout and mashed potatoes. Temperatures were dropping that night and another fairly big storm rolled through as we were heading to bed.
A rainy night produced a drippy, gray morning with a stiff north wind and cool temps-a complete 180 from the day before. That usually spells poor fishing and this was no exception. We gave it a good shot in the waves and rain, but had no bites. Before long we scrapped it and just hung out under the tarp. Rain kept up through much of the day. We still had fun BSing. I whipped up a fish-less sausage jambalaya type dish that hit the spot for supper and we hit the hay fairly early. It was just one of those BWCA rainy days that occur once in a while.
On Monday morning the sun began poking back out as we packed up camp and loaded the boat. It became a beautiful sunny day as we fished our way to the truck portage, but the fish were still off their feed - no bites. After the ATV and boat rides we soon had the gear loaded in the truck and headed for Duluth. I came home and caught a neighborhood Labor Day picnic just in time for some great food.
It was good, relaxing trip that was easygoing...I'll try that area again someday.
Nature Moment: After the storm had passed on Saturday, we became aware of a flock of large birds circling over our campsite. Turkey vultures. Soon there were a bunch of them circling right over us - 13 to be exact. Did they see the lightning strike and assume we were dead? It was a bit ominous.
Hubs' Flub: I mentioned our trouble finding our site in the dark on the first evening. We should have left a lantern turned on or something... We bopped back and forth, even mistaking another occupied site for our own, which may have been awkward for site's occupants. What made it worse is that we both had headlamps along...with dead batteries. Not our best wilderness moment. The site was actually much closer to the tip of the island than we had thought. Next time we'll be more careful.
Quote of the Trip: Chief - "Hey, there are people in our campsite!"
