Waking to cloudy skies and having loaded the canoe the night before, we picked up our leeches and decided to stop for coffee and donuts instead of eating breakfast. We headed East out town and to the Echo Trail and about 50 minutes later arrived at the Little Indian Sioux entry 14 parking lot. The lot was pretty full but we found a place to park the Tundra, unloaded..and headed to the starting point. The Little Indian Sioux was wider than we expected and had quite a bit of beaver activity. We saw several beaver and at one point we encountered a dam almost across the width with a narrow passage on the right side. Our first portage ran along rapids for 60rds. and ended with a small waterfall and once again into the river. The river opens into Upper Pauness and a short paddle across this lake brought us to the 40 rd portage into Lower Pauness where we paddled towards the North end of the lake to view the Devil’s Cascade, a real cool gorge cut by rapids and having a vertical drop of about 75 ft. along its course… From the sightseeing of the cascade we continued to paddle towards Shell Lake and the 216 rd portage into Shell.. This portage started out steep but leveled off and then surprised us with a short boardwalk and six inches of water over the boards for about 30 ft…The boards kind of sank down as you would walk on them…but not quite to the tops of our boots.. we could see that beaver had dammed up a waterway and formed their own little pond there. A little farther and we came to Shell entrance, a muddy bog to launch from….after throwing down a few logs, we loaded and proceeded thru Shell and then on to Heritage… This portage wasn’t long but the end into Heritage was too shallow for our MN III and its load of gear and three people….We ended up taking our boots off and walking the canoe through the rocky entrance until we could clear the rocks. Heritage lake is a long narrow lake with two campsites... the first one being occupied, we headed North to the remaining one…the one we'd hoped for.

This was our camp for the next two nights. We cooked up some real mean ribeyes and potatoes complete with Budweiser or supper. The first day ended with a very memorable sighting of two moose, a cow and a yearling, swimming across the lake in front of our camp..

More clouds and cool temps greeted us as we woke for our second day. ( So cool, that we opted to throw on the long johns) After a hearty breakfast of homemade biscuits and sausage gravy, we decided to test the Heritage Lake waters for whatever fish might await us… we fished almost the entire length of the lake picking up several pike and watching a deer swim the width in front of us…before succumbing to those increasing rain drops that had forced us to don our raingear.. The entire afternoon was spent under a makeshift tarp hung over the gear and we enjoyed our companionship. Just in time for the evening meal of Swedish meatballs and noodles, the rain stopped and we actually saw a little sun…Enjoying a nice fire we crashed early into the bags to ward off the cool 40’s.

I slept warm in my hat, long johns, and socks despite it getting fairly cold in the high 30’s last night. Luna has started to chew her sleeping pad and rip out the insulation. I regret not bringing any rawhide bones for her. She has a lot of downtime when I’m doing chores.

I made breakfast and packed a lunch for our day trip today. Another spectacular sunny morning with a mist on the lake.

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The plan is to go around the corner down a bay to the east end and take the portage into Plough Lake which is said to have good smallmouth bass fishing. There’s also rumours of a large stand of old cedars on the portage. I rig up the rods and we’re off.

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At the Plough landing I see the trees. Some of these could be 300 years old. It’s a beautiful trail with boardwalks in places over the mud. Luna is very happy to be on the trail again.

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The put in at Plough is mucky but I had fun fishing the lake and while I caught 11-12 fish only 2 were decent size. I lost a nice one when it jumped and spit out the single hook on the spinner bait. At the end of the narrow lake I retraced my way and went back to camp for lunch at 12:30.

We headed back out to fish on Emerald making a clockwise loop around the lake going around islands and into bays. I meet another solo canoeist and as we chat I realize it’s the guy who I saw at his site having coffee on Other Man. He’s only passing through on his way to the Gunflint Trail.

The fishing is slow but I do keep 2 decent smallmouth for supper. I filet them on a bare rock sticking out of the water. Luna does not like when I hit the fish with rocks to kill them and gets visibly upset. This time she hid in some thick bushes and wouldn't come out. I had to pull her by the collar. Border Collies can be extremely sensitive dogs. I think she got scared by the violence of it. It's not something I particularly enjoy doing either.

Back in camp it’s easy making a fire as previous campers left a pile of cut wood for me. I'm thankful for this.

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The fish turns out great and Luna gets some too mixed in her food. I go for another swim after cleaning up. What a great place to swim and I dive off a little 3 foot platform rock. A group of 3 canoes with 6 middle aged women cruise past my site around 6:00 and I overhear their disappointment when they notice that this one is taken. They continue on up a ways and grab a nice 3 star on the south shore. I can hear their voices as they set up camp maybe a quarter of a mile away.

There’s a few loons here and they call to each other at dusk. It’s a beautiful sunset from the porch as I read my book.

This morning we tried fishing for a walleye breakfast, but catching only one, we returned to camp and fried up the bacon and eggs we’d packed along… After cleanup, we decided to go back into Lynx and try our skills or luck there… We fished Little Shell and Lynx picking up a few smallies and checking out a nice vacant campsite near the portage to Heritage on Lynx ( nice fire grate area and “Kitchen”) but no walleyes… Back on Shell we caught a couple walleyes and perch for supper and also watched the skies while cooking that evening…..They were black and full of rain all along the western horizon but luckily split and went around us on either side.

[ Sidenote on Shell: We could recommend Shell as a good lake for “buglemouth bass” but hesitate to say we came to Northern MN to catch them. So, we’ll leave it at that. HA HA]

Thursday, day 5, we once again were on the move so we ate light (coffee and oatmeal)….We pulled out of Shell and back through the portage with the submerged planks.. Through Lower Pauness and into Upper Pauness… Where we set up our last camp on the point next the Little Indian Sioux entrance and not far from the 8 rd portage on the end of that lake…. It had a good grass landing for the canoe and after walking up a short path we set up overlooking the entire end of the lake….The only drawback was not a lot of “good “ wood for a fire…(a lot of dead and rotting pine)… but beautiful sunset.. That afternoon was spent fishing along the eastern shoreline and relaxing in the sun----YES SUN, and peeling off our now permenent long underwear. Also we enjoyed our camp pets, Chimpmunks. Our last supper was great, shell macoroni and spam…and brought back memories of spam . After supper we paddled across the lake to fish the west side and had a light rain move across the lake like smoke. It didn’t last long and we barely got wet so we continued to fish, catching several nice smallmouth and a couple of small pike…and catching some good pictures of a spectacular rainbow. The sky also provided a really good last sunset and a fitting last evening for our 2009 trip…

We rose early and were packed and ready to take the last leg of the trip, back to the entry 14 parking lot…. it started sprinkling again and It continued until we got nearly to the starting point. The parking lot was a good site to see and although we were already missing the crys of the loons… I think we were all ready to shed the long johns and enjoy the shower at VNO… and a sandwich and fries at the Steakhouse.

[Postnote: We actually enjoyed this weather AND there were no bugs…only three ticks and NO mosquitoes all week….and although not as many fish as we would have liked, still a GREAT trip and as always GREAT memories.]