Monday, June 12, 2006. Partly cloudy with temps in the mid 70s.

Our plan this morning was to fish for lake trout in Albert Lake. After a breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee, we paddled into Ceph Lake and located the 24 rod portage into Albert. What we found on the other end of the portage was one of the clearest lakes any of us had ever seen. You could easily see the bottom in 20’. As you moved further away from shore and the bottom dropped out, the water took on this wonderful emerald green color. The research I had done indicated some lake trout presence so we dragged large flashy spoons along Albert’s shore lines in search of them. We didn’t find any. We did catch a number of nice sized pike, all between 6 and 12 pounds. We agreed that if we ever returned to this area, we would spend a night on Albert and fish for the trophy pike that most certainly swim its waters.

We left Albert at mid day and headed back to our Jean Lake campsite. After lunch we packed up and took the 80 rod portage into Burntside Lake. Burntside would provide us with a much needed layover. We scored a 5-star island campsite and setup camp. After dinner, we hit the water to see what kind of fishing Burntside had to offer. It didn’t take long to find out. The walleye fishing on Burntside was outstanding. Textbook. Any place that looked like it should hold walleye, did. Mike and I found a hot walleye hole on the back side of our island. We caught walleye steadily for an hour and a half, occasionally getting bit off by an aggressive pike if we ventured too far from the “walleye zone”. We fished until dark, and then headed back to camp. We enjoyed a nice campfire and eventually crawled into our tents for the night.