Boundary Waters/Quetico Trip for 2001

June 8th-17th, 2001
Day 8:Friday, June 14th, 2001 Lazy day in the BWCA

Friday was here.  This would be the last full day in the BWCA.  Actually, we were in Quetico, but a simple hop across a rock would put us into the BWCA.  Close enough if you ask me.  Anyway, we decided to do absolutely nothing today.  With the cold front that passed through the night before, we were both pretty sure the fishing was done.  Besides, the wind was blowing about a billion miles per hour.  Actually, the wind was not that bad, but we wanted to surprise SmallieSaver, Flukemeister, Mots, and the others when they came through.  We were not supposed to be where we were, and they would be surprised to see us.

They were, in fact, surprised to see us.  We talked to each group as they came through, and even took some pictures of them. GadgetMan and I told them all the secrets, and the good fishing spots and baits that we had used.  Of course, most of the fishing spots were in Quetico, and they would not be able to fish them.oh well.

After all the groups passed, GadgetMan and I decided to try our Cache Bay honeyhole one more time.  We paddled Cache Bay, found our secret spot, and began to fish.  Funny, the fish were not cooperating.  Had we sore mouthed every fish in the cove, or were they just not biting?  GadgetMan and I decided, being "he men" fisherman, that we had actually caught every fish in this cove.  We also decided that had the fish been here, they would have immediately recognized us, and surrendered by jumping into the canoe.  We fished for about 2 hours without much success.  We did finally find a couple smallies in another area of the lake.  This area is another magic spot, but we decided to leave it for tomorrow, our last day in the Boundary Waters.  We put these 2 smallies on the stringer, and headed back to camp.  These would be blackened and eaten with mashed potatoes.  As stated earlier,  this is by far the best way to eat fish in the Boundary Waters.

After lunch, and a 3 or 4-hour nap, we decided to head over to Zephyr and talk with the crew that had came in this morning.   They were having luck catching fish on Zephyr, and it looked like they were in for a good week of fishing.  We also talked with the group on Second Bay.  These guys have visiting the Boundary Waters for just under a billion years, and always base camp.  

There are some people who advocate smaller groups, while others choose larger groups.  I have done it both ways, and have had good experiences with both.  The time shared with 6 or 7 good friends around the campfire at night cannot be beat.  There is nothing like it.  We even have some great video from a few years ago, which is still shown at planning meetings.  On the other hand, the seclusion and separation that you can experience with just 2 or 4, not to mention the faster travel time to everywhere is also something that cannot be beat.  In the future, I will probably do both type of trips, but will probably favor the smaller groups.

The weather started turning for the worse, and we had stayed longer at Zephyr than we had planned.  It was nearly 9:00PM, and we had some paddling to do to get back to First Bay.  We decided not to fish on the way back.  Good thing because the wind started picking up, and a huge storm front was approaching from the West.  We could see this huge wall of clouds.  We were about ½ mile from our campsite, when we started seeing lightning behind us.  I didn't hear the clap of thunder, so I figured we had about 10 minutes before we would get hammered.  It started to sprinkle.  We were about ¼ a mile from our camp when it really started lighting up the sky.  With this lightning, I could hear the thunder.  We paddled as hard as we could and was at the campsite within a few minutes, but those minutes felt like hours.  During this whole trip, I had not really felt the "burn" of muscles until now.  Both of my shoulders were on fire due to the heavy paddling that we had just done.

We turned in for the night without dinner.  The lightning storm would go on for about 3 hours.  It would be one of the worse storms I have ever witnessed in the Boundary Waters.

Tomorrow would be our last day in the Boundary Waters.

Total smallies for the Day:5
Total smallies for the Trip:368

Hopefully, we would break the 400-smallmouth mark tomorrow.  This would indeed be a great accomplishment.

This page was last updated on: December 23, 2022