Wednesday, July 25, 2012 A rain starts up during the night. Tom hears it and wakes me up and we get out and rig the fly over the tent (often have it pegged and laying to one side, if not needed). Pretty good thunderstorm and steady rain after 2am through the night. We slept in past 7am to drizzle and mist. Didn't fish, but broke camp and travelled south out of Van.
I think we bushwacked on the east side of the creek to Bewon. Then, south of Bewon, the blue shown on the map turned out to be marsh with creeks (=more carrying than I figured on). Tom scouted a route along the east side and through some woods (maybe old portage in a spot or two?) to meet the west end of Ledge. At one point I lost track of Galli dog; turns out she loped ahead to travel with Tom (guess who the slowpoke is, now).
At Ledge, we had exited the Mugwump PMA, but we weren't quite done with it (had a night reserved in Zone 1). We caught the portage west towards Cap Lake (the one with a branch that runs south to Boulder). At 186 rods, this is a pretty good carry, but it was a delight, after a few days of brushcrashing. From Cap, we portaged west to the creek into Roe and then paddled/ pushed through lily pads up the creek from Raven. Now back in the Mugwump, but the travel not as difficult, as there are some old portages going to Raven. We had been to Raven once before, and it is a pretty lake. Camped near the portage; this is not a usual thing for us in the Bdub, but it was a rock area that seemed least likely to show impact. There is an old campsite on the northeast part of the lake in a limited burn area (I had read that there was a prescribed burn in that area...
It was still misting, but we pitched camp and got out fishing. Tom finally got into a lake trout and I got out my little waterproof Olympus and started a video. It ran for about 30 seconds: the whole deal with bent rod tip and all... then a snap of line and "Son of a ...." on the audio (a classic short video, an all time favorite. We've all been there). Tom tied on another lure and we trolled for a few minutes before he got into another one. This one was landed (I have the longer video proof for that one, too), and the curse of the Mugwump was finally broken.
On bare rock back at camp, we made our first fire in the PMA in order to get some coals to bake the trout. This one seemed to have more orange flesh than lake trout from some of the other lakes on the trip. Galli continued to demonstrate superb enthusiasm for fish skin, and I think she got some proper fish, too (she is becoming a master of concentration and eye contact...).