On clear, calm mornings we rarely miss a sunrise, and often get some fishing done before breakfast. Clouds, rain or wind tend to delay that. Thursday morning was a sleeping in kind of morning. Overcast and windy. But we expected that. It wasn't supposed to clear up until Friday afternoon. Our bay wasn't too choppy, so after a few cups of Folgers Crystals we took a quick trip around, landing another quickly released Northern before heading to the middle of the lake to fill our water bag. Eggs and Bacon, ice cold milk and a granola bar got us ready for the day.
After decades of paddling together, in some pretty harrowing conditions on occasion, our confidence in our abilities and trust in each other is as strong as can be. That fact, plus both of us having quality rain gear, means that unless there's lightning or over the gunwale size waves, we're going to get our fishing time in.
Dan has caught Lake Trout on a number of occasions, but despite many hours trying, I've yet to land one, and changing that was one of our goals for this trip. With that in mind, we spent most of the day trolling for them. Shallow runners, deep runners, spoons, every color we had. Shallow water, deep water, ledges, reefs, in the bays and right down the middle of the lake. We tried everything we could think of to no avail. Hunger, sore backs and tired arms drove us back to camp sometime in the afternoon. After a quick snack and some stretching out of stiff muscles, we collected and prepared firewood for the night.

A few more hours fishing before dinner were as fruitless as the rest of the day, with the added bonus of a quick but heavy rainshower soaking the pileoof split wood we'd stupidly left uncovered back at camp. Salads and Steaks for dinner, pan fried again since we had no dry wood.
We sat on the clifftop and drank some Jim Beam until darkness set in. We gave a campfire a try but the wet wood didn't allow it.
Friday morning saw a couple hours of clearing skies but by the time breakfast (bacon and eggs) was finished, the clouds were back.. The rest of the day was more of the same. Constant wind, overcast skies, off and on sprinkles, no luck catching a Laker. As dusk approached, we trolled some shallow runners over a walleye hole we've had past success with and Dan landed one just big enough to eat. It was dark by the time we got back to camp, and we were too hungry to wait for a fire to get going enough to cook, so it was steaks and salads,pan fried again, but wrapped in bacon this time. A snack sized walleye filet each was a nice finish. It hadn't been raining. and our wood was dry, so we enjoyed some whiskey next to our first campfire under another starless night sky.
Saturday came with more cloudy skies, although there were brief patches of blue occasionally, and a few hours in the afternoon where the solid white sky turned to a sort of wispy, weirdly pretty, but still sun blocking cloud cover.
Over a breakfast of eggs and bacon, with cheese on the eggs for extra fanciness, we decided that if the Trout were still not biting, we'd head to our walleye hole and hopefully have some luck there. We also brought up the thought of breaking camp early in the afternoon and getting to Jordan lake to cut off a few hours from Sunday's trip out. No trout, so we went for walleyes. The wind was blowing pretty good, so we would paddle hard into it, then slow troll over the hole. 7 times produced three gorgeous, perfectly sized eaters and one that was too big for eating that was returned to hopefully get even bigger and give someone a memorable experience.
The wind was picking up more, and the 3 fish we had would make a hearty meal, so we decided to head back to camp, clean our fish, and if the wind cooperated, break camp and head out. Dan tossed a big spoon over the side, we took two strokes, and BOOM! A perfect eater sized Laker hit his spoon before it was done sinking. I wanted to try my luck too, but while I fought the wind so Dan could land his trout, my Rapala had attacked my rain pants with 5 of 6 hooks. By the time I extracted it, we'd been blown 100 yards down the lake, so we just high tailed it for camp with what we had.
We got back to camp and while Dan cleaned the fish I headed into the forest to get some firewood. Dinner would require a campfire since these filets were too big to fit in our little frying pan. As I was emerging from the brush with a couple nice branches, I saw Dan coming my way out of the corner of my eye.
"Hey there" he said. I gave a cursory wave and bent down to grab the wood when he said, politely but with no hint of B.S.,
"Can I talk to you for a minute?". At this point, especially when camping, we communicate with sarcasm, inside jokes and slang, or just grunts and hand gestures. A stern tone and straightforward question like that means bad news or trouble. With no cell service, bad news from home was out, we'd tied up the canoe and hung the food pack, so camp problems weren't likely. So I looked up expecting to see a fish fileting mishap or something. Instead, hanging on his hip, I saw a badge and gun which were definitely not Dan's.
"Game Warden, just doing license checks, you have yours?" He asked, while most definitely scanning the area I'd emerged from for signs that my trip to the woods was more than the firewood search heed been told I was on. "Yep, it's down in my tackle box"
He followed me, uncomfortably closely, down to the boat where I produced my license. They stayed for another 5 minutes or so, and while the small talk and questions were seemingly innocent, I'm sure that our answers and mannerisms were being scrutinized for any signs that we were hiding something. But we weren't, so they wished us well and were on their way. We both remarked about how that was the first time either of us had ever seen a warden or ranger this deep in the park, and went back to our tasks.
Within minutes of finishing the firewood, a steady, soaking rain started falling. I covered the wood this time, and we sat under the tarp to wait it out. By 6:30 it had not let up one bit. Breaking camp in the rain and high tailing it to the car is one thing. Breaking camp in the rain, only to set up again in the rain for one wet night sucks,). We decided that warm dry beds were more pleasant than the damp, muddy junk we were sitting in, so we both laid does and proceeded to fall asleep. We awoke at dusk and the rain had stopped. We got a fire going, finally broke out the Copper Grill mat, which is a godsend for cooking over Forest Service grates, and proceeded to stuff ourselves silly with our last bacon wrapped steaks, 6 restaurant sized walleye fillets and a dessert of grilled Lake Trout that was the tastiest fish I've had in a long time. The wind stopped and stars came out for about 20 minutes, we stared at them while they lasted, toasted the end of the trip with a few swigs of bourbon and went to bed.