I promised Jack I would take him fishing early in the morning. He had put in a lot of fishing time without much action. I thought I would take him out to a couple drop offs and see if we could find some early morning walleye. My alarm went off around 6 am. Jack and I rose, but the rest of the camp stirred as well. Jack and I went out into a pretty stiff wind. We paddled around and jigged off the bottom for over an hour and didn't get a single bite. I tried 5 feet to 35 feet back to 5 feet and not even a smallie. Jack didn't care, it was the effort that counted. We made it back in camp in time for flapjacks and started to take down the camp.

The paddle back was of course into the wind. It took us an hour or so to get across Caribou to the portage. We first landed at the wrong portage, but figured that out before we unloaded. The real portage itself was a bit of bear. Brett told me later that when Beau woke up that morning he was already thinking about the portage and asked Brett or anyone that was listening, "why did God make portages so long?" The first half of the 260 was a steady incline. I decided to portage a pack and a canoe. The rest of the guys double packed it or pack and canoe like me. It was a bit warm (80 plus degrees) and we all needed an extra break once we hit Clearwater and had to double back for the rest of the gear. The kids waited for us at portage end. The last paddle across Clearwater was sad because our trip was coming to an end, but I think I can speak for all of us and say we were beat. We loaded up the trucks, took some showers (Garlock and his now black kids swam in the lake to clean one layer of dirt off) and headed to Grand Marais. The trip officially ended when we hit Duluth in the afternoon. Great trip and I know the kids can't wait until the 2011 trip.