Day 5, Saturday August 10

Loons called intermittently through night. How quickly things become common place and comforting. I awoke at five and tried to sleep a little more getting up at six. This morning I accidently put instant potatoes in Tony’s coffee instead of milk so he received a extra burst of carbs with his morning joe. (Ok, it was a little sludgy.) Saganons is a lovely lake with many nice open campsites, stunning views, and good fishing. I caught 5 pike (geez) before lunch. In fact the first cast after pushing off I snagged a lunker. About 11am Judy caught a very nice bass in a narrows section and the fishing was on!

Zach, in the process of lamenting, “ I haven’t caught a fish all day” landed a nice fat walleye on his next cast. Mark boated a large bass as Ryan reeled in another walleye.We circled the spot for about an hour catching and releasing a host of fish and keeping a couple on a stringer for a later snack. Eventually, we moseyed to a nearby campsite for a lunch of fillet of fish pan-fried by the lake. After three catch and release only trips to the Quetico, Tony ate his first Quetico fish today. It may be hard to go back. . . Following lunch it was on to the falls chain which after all the warnings and hype, turned out to be straight forward paddling and portaging, extremely beautiful, and very CROWDED! I think we saw eight other parties in that short section. Apparently the falls is a major attractant . . .After days of seeing an occasional distant canoe, the area felt like it was crawling with people. It was hard to enjoy the falls fully as the portages were backed up and you felt like you were being herded along. We pushed past all the sites where we had targeted camping (because they were full) and ended up settling for a small but workable camp at the entrance to Wet Lake. We were targeting a rest day tomorrow but this is not the spot. Everyone was hot and tired but quickly rejuvenated with a swim and a wash and then settled in for the evening.