Monday, August 01, 2011 Another beautiful day and we are off to Darky Lake. The dramatic cliffs on the south end of the lake are a quite a sight. There are two sets of pictographs, one near the portage and the other about a half mile up the east shore. The second is definitely worth the stop but beware, they are guarded by a robust growth of poison ivy. As you canoe along the 4 or 5 sets of cliffs, look for the huge glacial erratic that sits precariously on one of the slopes.

We took a site about 1/2 way of the east side of the lake with exceptional Flintstone furniture for tables and cooking. We soon found this site had a sizeable snapping turtle in residence ,also, but we had learned our lesson from the previous site so this guy would only get scraps.

We tried jigging the bays just to the north of our site with very limited luck (small bass). We then tried pulling plugs but again, only small northerns and bass. Not a fish worth keeping. Who knows why the difference between Monday on Darky and the good fishing on Argo the day before. We had a fishless meal that night.

While we were fishing, my wife and daughter were back at camp. They heard the begging call of a recently fledged eagle and looked out over the lake to see the youngster flying very low over the water towards what appeared to be two gulls. Surprisingly, the young eagle landed on the water close to the herring gull. Concerned for the young bird's safety, my wife got the binocs on the bird and watched the scene unfold. The young eagle regained flight and flew to shore about 1/2 mile away. Upon further observation, it was discovered that the other "gull" was actually an adult bald eagle in the water. They watched the eagle do a sort of butterfly stroke all the way to the peninsula where the young eagle was waiting. The adult eagle continued "swimming" along the shore for about 15-20 minutes until it came to a nice flat rock, where it crawled up on the rock with a large fish in its talons.

The youngster came galumphing over to the adult, and excitedly began begging for the fish, which it began eating with great exuberance. Meanwhile, the adult perched on a rock and preened. After giving the youngster a generous amount of time to stuff itself with fish,the adult began feeding, too. It was quite a sight to see that adult eagle working so hard to bring a meal to its offspring. Yet, when it finally made it to shore, the bird did not seem exhausted or stressed, just really wet. What powerful birds eagles are!

As sunset, you could see clouds building in the west. We expected rain during the night and we got some... not a lot but enough to dampen the ground. It was still misting in the morning but was done by 8am Tuesday.