Friday, August 05, 2016 This morning was partly cloudy, but the sky was getting clearer by the minute. I once again had Mountain House's Breakfast Skillet for breakfast, and it once again filled my tummy very nicely and tasted very good. I sat and read some more of "Firewall" and was very glad the weather where I was was not like in the book. I listened to the weather on my weather radio, and this day's weather forecast was very good with 10 mph northwest winds. On this day while I'm reading I was visited by my new buddy, Mr Snowshoe Hare Rabbit. His big ears and big hind legs made him different from rabbits I'm used to seeing farther south. He hopped up very slowly to within ~3 feet of me a few times during the next 2 days. At about 11 am I went fishing, and I decided to cast along the west side of the islands as I worked my way in a south direction. A little back and forth, and an hour later I got a monster hit. My rod tip bent down into the water twice as I fought this fish, and he was a good fighter. As I got him close, he dove down again. I readied my net as I brought him close a second time, and I scooped him into the net, finally realizing I had a lunker largemouth. He filled the net fully. He was almost 22" long and on my little scale he weighed 5.5 lbs. I immediately realized my trip was complete on the fishing side. I decided to clean him and have another monster fish fry. I once again used that first island as a cleaning spot, and the 2 fillets were just awesome. I went back to my campsite, added the fish breading I'd packed, and heated my frying pan with some oil. It was now about 1:30 pm. The 2 fillets filled the pan nicely, and I really had to stretch my tummy to eat the entire fish. Now you just don't leave food (particularly fish) laying around, so I kept filling my gut until it was all gone. Tasted sooooo good! As I cleaned my kitchen, I realized I probably wouldn't need to eat dinner tonight. So now I once again got my book out and just sat back awhile. Later in the afternoon at about 5 pm I decided to paddle out to a good swimming spot and take a bath and swim awhile. The water was cool and just perfect for a refreshing swim, so I floated on my back and just relaxed with my arms behind my head. I'm not a great swimmer, but I can float very well. I went back to camp and changed into dry clothes, hung my wet ones, and cleaned camp some. It was a very cool night with an expected low of 47, so once again, great sleeping weather. Every night I started the night on top of my sleeping bag, but later would find my way inside.