Day 4: Fishing day. 6.5 miles 30? Rods Lakes paddled: Hanson, Link, Gift, Fish I woke up this morning and Royce is already getting out sausage for breakfast and lunches ready to go with us so we can fish till dinner which we are both hoping will be a northern. Can’t believe how calm it is again. So far the only day we’ve had to deal with anything more than a breeze was yesterday when we had a wind from the north while we paddled up Hanson and even then it wasn’t that windy. No whitecaps. We paddle over to the entrance to link lake to start our fishing journey. It isn’t marked on our maps but we’d seen it yesterday. The portage is short and we have a light load, we get to Link and I throw on my Heddon Lucky 13 which I’m told is good for the northerns up here. On my third cast I get a hit and on my first I think something just missed, I reel in my first Boundary Waters bronzeback. Now we’re excited! We can actually catch fish! It’s fun fishing with water this clear, being able to watch fish follow your lure. A little bit later I cast out and see a splash about 12 feet from my lure, I was confused until a few seconds later I got a hit and reeled in a nice little largemouth. The fish love the lucky 13 so much that they flop around as soon as it hits the water! We fish until our spot stops producing then move onto Gift Lake. We tried a couple of spots and had no luck so we keep moving into Fish Lake, I thought we’d have some good luck on the south side but not more than a couple hits. On the north side of fish on the east side of the peninsula Royce finally snags a small Northern. In the process of helping/watching him land that I stopped reeling and when I picked up my rod and started again I had a Northern of my own. I lost him right next to the boat but he was decent, definitely a good size for some shore lunch. Went over our spot a 3rd or 4th time and Royce landed nice eating sized one. We put him on the stringer and fried him up with some shore lunch. In the process of filleting the fish at camp I dropped the lid to our pan in the lake so I got to go swimming later. We both agreed that original shore lunch is not as good as the beer batter one, we didn’t want to lug beer around but we will be next time. Eating the fish that we had just caught while out in the woods really made me feel more connected to this place, less like a visitor and more like a habitant. I enjoyed it. I’m also pretty proud of ourselves, for not having done anything like this before we’re doing quite well. Royce had said he was sore after the first day which had scared me but he says he hasn’t felt that since. Granted we haven’t had to contend with wind or rain but we at least now know that we are capable of these trips. I look forward to coming back with my wife and kids, my dad and of course more with my brother. As I know that it’s not so much just about where you go but who you go with. Each one of those trips with different people in my life would be completely different. Plus we still haven’t seen any mooses, bears, wolves or the northern lights so I have all kinds of reasons to come back.