DAY FIVE 6/22/16

The temperature dipped down last night and I found myself tucked all the way down into my sleeping bag. Dad got up during the night to put his socks on, I should have done the same. Scott went to bed in his one-man tent and he had strung up his LED camping lights, his tent was glowing and alternating the colors red, blue, green, and purple. Kept him occupied while he went to sleep. The time was 8:30am and I was going to get up for the day. I did what I usually do in the morning. Grabbed my Nalgene bottle, camping chair and journal. Found a nice place at the campsite and hammered out a few pages about the canoe trip. I find it very relaxing to be up here in the woods. Today we are going to explore the Bolder River. Years ago, Scott talked about how a person could get out on the banks of the river and hop around on the rocks, to fish from shore. The water has rose a lot in 10 years. We paddled down the river towards Lake Agnus and found some rapids where we stopped to fish for what felt like 20 min but in reality, was a good hour. I was having so much fun exploring the rapids and trying to catch a fish. We left the rapid area and started paddling back up the River. We beached the canoe and had a late lunch on the rocks. Velveeta cheese and crackers, along with beef jerkey was our lunch today for the day trip. It wasn’t till we were leaving the River when Scott suddenly had something on the line. Scott landed a nice sized Northern and I helped him get it out of the water and took the hook out with my Leatherman. Now, Scott brought a fish stringer that had green plastic hooks attached to a rope. I pushed the plastic hook through the bottom of the jaw and placed the green plastic hook into its locking slot and handed the fish over to Scott. He went to put the fish in the water and BLOOP! The fish came off the stringer and into the water he went! I’m sure that Northern was laughing the whole time as he was plummeting towards the water. I thought Scott was going to get upset because I didn’t slide the green lock down on the plastic green hook stringer. Nope, He was still cool as a cucumber and we went on fishing. We ended up catching a Walleye and 3 Northerns. I caught the smallest one and put it on the stringer. On the way out of the River, Scott landed a nice sized Norther that took his whole rapala! Scott had to cut the line and planned on getting the fish back to camp where he could get the lure out. He then took the stringer hooked the northern through the bottom of the jaw, locked down the green tab, and threw the fish into the water. Dad said, “Let’s go back to camp”. So, we were all paddling out of the Boulder River with big smiles on our faces, when all a sudden, there was a loud slap against the canoe and a splash of water! Dads reaction went “There goes the big Northern!” Yet another fish escaped Scotts green plastic fish stinger, but we still had a Walleye and that small Northern for tonight’s meal.

Later, at camp, Scott says to Dad “You know John, 20 years ago you would have jumped out of the canoe to catch that Northern that shook loose!” We all had a great laugh and Scott modified his fish stringer and took off all the green hooks that were brittle, he did leave a few good ones. The stringer was ready for another round of fishing tomorrow or the next day. Sitting around camp tonight, enjoying the view of the lake and swatting mosquitoes, when Dad asks Scott “What are we going to be doing when your seventy-five and I’m seventy-four? Scott says, “Same thing, what do mosquitoes eat when we are not here.” We all shared another huge laugh as we reflected on the day.