Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Early to rise again. Dead calm and clear. Cold too. Beaver rush hour in the narrows. I have decided to layover here on Polly. After breakfast I head out to fish and explore. I paddled south to the falls on the Kawishiwi river, thinking that shallow bay should have active fish and although I do catch a nice smallie trolling the shoreline, fishing is very slow. I am sure that at one time this falls was very picturesque but now with blackened trunks laying every which way across the falls and in the brown of early spring it has lost some of its beauty. After lunch I decide to go and fish the river flowing into Koma and on the way over see another canoe for the first time. A second canoe quickly appears and has a bwca.com sticker. On the first portage to Koma we chat a bit and I learn his name has the word needles in. I am terrible at remembering names. After more fruitless fishing I went back to camp. While fishing in the narrows again with my Lindy rig nightcrawler setup and sitting in my camp chair, a fairly large fish swims slowly along the shore right in front of me. I reel in my rig until the floater is somewhere in the vicinity of this fish and after bit the line peels out an I set the hook and reel in a 3-4 lb whitefish. This fish is completely missing an eye! Just a grey socket on one side of its head. While I am trying to decide what to do with my one eyed sucker fish, a small animal comes swimming across the narrows directly towards me. My first thought was that it was a panicked baby Otter but when it climbed up the cedar tree on the shore it was clearly a little red squirrel and a mangy looking one at that. As I have developed a habit of talking to squirrels in my career as an arborist, we had a one sided conversation. It was soon clear that he expected that his long winter of want had come to an end and was glad to see a camper and expected a feast to be forthcoming. He never left me alone the rest of my time in my island campsite. The wind blew from the south and it got noticeably warmer as evening came. I again retired early.