Monday, September 05, 2011 We awoke at 545 to a BEAUTIFUL day on the water. It ended up being 70, sunny, and just a slight northern wind all day. Perfect BWCA weather if you were to ask those who know about such things. The mornings fishing adventure produced several more northern but still not the plethora we had been looking for. So far we had been jig fishing with leaches and worms and tossing crank baits, from 15’-25’. That afternoon I decided to try a different technique. We hadn’t caught much doing spot fishing so I thought we needed to cover more ground and find out where the fish are. So how do you hit a lot of territory fast while fishing from a canoe? You troll. We began trolling around the islands in the north end of Friday in about 20 feet and had immediate success. We caught a few decent size northern and a couple mammoth bass. Then we started paddling between the islands and we started to catch suspended fish over 60 ft of water. We did this for hours off and on throughout the day catching fish consistently throughout. My brother landed what I estimate to be a 36-38 inch northern paddling just in front of our campsite in over 40 ft of water. That evening after a day of fishing, swimming and relaxing, we had a walleye and northern feast for dinner feeling like we were eating the spoils of a great victory. Spirits were high. And that is where they would remain the rest of the trip. After doing some clean up we entered the fray again. This time with renewed vigor and even higher expectations. Friday bay conceded the fight early that night and stood no match for our seven lines. We fished till sundown catching numerous northern, and somewhere around 20 walleye, with smallies sprinkled throughout. All of these prisoners we captured were released to fight again, but not after many pictures to prove the victories.
That night we sat around the campfire swapping stories of fish from the night. By the time we went to bed I think our numbers had grown to about 200 walleyes that day. Funny how that happens. Maybe it was just the fire, but I swear I could see the same boundary waters love cultivating in the eyes of my companions that my brother and I have from all the times my dad has taken us up. Thanks dad. Couldn’t have done this without you. I saw one mosquito that night, it was almost nostalgic. It was the only one I saw all trip. They had been like a distant memory this trip and seeing this one reminded me of how bad they can be at certain times of year. I promptly killed him. “Yeah, September is not such a bad time to be up here” I thought.