Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Wednesday morning is absolutely beautiful at 5 am. Cold, but beautiful! Make some hot water for coffee and go fishing from the bank. Catch a northern on a Johnson silver spoon. Krista is sleeping in after a long two days.

Today will be a day of rest and relaxation. We plan to stay another night and go day tripping for smallies and northern and walleyes. We get breakfast and clean up around camp and make preparations for our daytrip. Boy, do things (weather) change quickly in the BW. We never even get into the canoe before the wind picks up from the southwest. Exactly the direction we were planning to head into. Oh well, we make do on the island and fish from the bank. No luck. It keeps getting warmer and before long, Krista is in shorts, and I’m peeling my shirt off. Finally, I get the idea to take a plunge in Ogish. My feet are numb, but it feels good to break the heat. Time to eat lunch.

I make my way to the tent, and see food and wrappers scattered everywhere. What is it? A bear? A skunk? I look up and 10 feet above me is a seagull circling the camp. Bagels are missing, biscuits are missing, the pita bread is partially eaten and the popcorn oil is eaten. What a mess. Even some PBJ is gone. Eat lunch and take pictures of the whitecaps to the southwest. Later do some more fishing and take another dip in the lake. This time fully clothed. Want to see how fast my clothes dry with the wind having to be in the 40 mph plus range.

After our tarp bungee straps are ripped apart in wild wind gusts, I tie the ropes directly to the plastic tarp connectors. They hold the rest of the day in spite of the gusts. I am happy with the tyvek tarp the entire trip. 10’ wide would have been a little better than the 9’ wide piece we had. It was 9x14. After dinner, we go fishing once the wind dies down. We get into a cove and go up it to the falls coming from Mueller. We see two guys in a canoe in the fast water. These are the same two guys who stopped in at our camp at lunchtime. They were coming from the west with the wind behind their back. Even still the water was rough. I was sitting behind some bushes waiting for the seagull to return to grab more of our food. While I was quietly sitting, I keep thinking I hear voices coming off the water, but the winds are so loud the voices are muffled. Eventually, I see a canoe pull up to shore with two guys in it. They are getting out and start walking around and finally notice our canoe behind the trees. I think they are a little embarrassed and get back in their canoe and shove off while apologizing. I tell them, “No problem” and they are on their way. I tell them the next site is occupied as well. Anyway, back to fishing. We don’t get any bites and neither do they, so we move over to the inlet in front of the Mueller portage. Krista has a leech about 6-8’ under a bobber and she gets a strike while it is drizzling from the sky. She lands a smallmouth about 3 pounds. It is definitely fatter and longer than one she catches later in the trip that weighed 2 pounds on our scale. Rain keeps sputtering and we catch nothing more. As it gets dark, we paddle back to camp and get in the tent, and then it rains harder most of the night.