Just back this evening from a 7 day trip on Alpine, Ogish and Seagull area. Will post a full trip report soon but a couple quick notes:

* I've posted this in the "Lost and Found" thread, but if anybody finds an old home-made fixed blade knife and sheath, probably on a portage or landing in between Jasper/Kingfisher or Kingfisher/Ogish, I'll be indebted to you forever. It was my 12 years old son's knife made by his grandfather.

* Can't remember who contributed this idea, but to whoever posted about putting a Therma Cell near the thunderbox first thing in the morning and let it run for awhile before morning rituals, you, sir or madame, are a genius.

* An 18 and 1/2 foot canoe, loaded with 3 large packs, 1 backpack, blue barrel, two young teenagers who are not strong paddlers, and myself has the turning radius of the Queen Mary.

* In the burn areas, blueberries are ripe and easy to find.

* We typically don't eat SMB in Ohio, we fried them up on Seagull Lake and they were delicious, I'm sure the water quality helps tremendously

* The tour of the Split Rock Lighthouse is interesting and worth the minimal price

Just my initial thoughts, hope to post a trip report soon.

I fried up some SMB on our trip last month with two newbies who weren't thrilled about the idea (Iowa bass suck). They were amazed & wanted more after that.

Agreed on the SMB. Any of the fish up there are amazing to eat.

Really hoping that knife finds its way back to you.

I’m going through there on the first Saturday in August. I will keep an eye out for it.

That is much appreciated, thank you...

Sounds like a good trip. I'm going to have to try a Thermacell if we do another July trip. Actually, I might get one just for our cabin. And I agree about Split Rock.

Hope that knife finds its way back to you. Does WELY still keep track of lost and founds? Is there anyone who does that in the gunflint area?

andym: "Sounds like a good trip. I'm going to have to try a Thermacell if we do another July trip. Actually, I might get one just for our cabin. And I agree about Split Rock.


Hope that knife finds its way back to you. Does WELY still keep track of lost and founds? Is there anyone who does that in the gunflint area?"

Andym, I'm not familiar with WELY, is that a BWCA member? Organization?

Thanks.

I strongly believe what makes fish good to eat depends highly on what the predominant forage base is and has much less to do with water temps and quality.

The worse bass I have tried to eat were caught in the canals of the Disney World parking lot. I was driving a motor home at that time, glanced in the canal and quickly snatched up my rod and reel. Shortly thereafter I had several nice bass. They were quickly fried up to a golden brown. One bite and I spit it out. Horrible. But smallish bass caught out of lake Okeechobee are excellent.

Most surprising was largemouth bass caught in lower Michigan out of a gravel pit. All those bass ate was crayfish and they were amongst the best eating fish ever in spite of their large size.

We also prefer smallmouth bass out of lake st Clair (lower Michigan) over walleye.

So my advice is try your bass out of various bodies of water before you buy into the common beliefs that bass are lousy eating. Just depends.....