Day 4 we woke up to the sun starting to come up but the wind in a calm mood. We quickly got dressed and got on the lake determined to start our quest for fishing greatness!

Our group headed for a presumed well known reef on the lake. Captn' and I worked the west east side with a more gradual grade and were focusing on the 13-16 ft range while Jon and Nick worked the end of the reef and were in a little faster sloping grade where they fished 20 ft or so.

My canoe started with slip bobbers with jig heads a leeches and instantly bobbers starting dropping and we started picking up really nice smallmouth. This was followed up by the sporadic walleye in the 15 inch range. We motioned for Jon and Nick to get over and we both anchored down and caught walleye at a good rate for about 30 minutes. As it began to slow I decided that slip bobbering wasn't really giving us a good gauge of where the fish were actually sitting since we were in one small spot around this whole reef area so we pulled the anchor and let the very small breeze push us along the reef and we casted 1/4 oz. jigs with leeches while I tried to keep us at the 14-16 ft. depth range. This was the key! We started to catch multiple walleyes each time we went down this contour! We would cast our jigs up wind and let them sink and just drag them enough to avoid snags and the fish would snatch them up. What a great start to our target lake! we got some nice sized pike and smallies mixed in as well.

The sun was up and we were getting hungry. We knew we had fish for supper now so it was time to go back and grab some breakfast and do some exploring of the lake.

We enjoyed some warm cup's of joe and and dad did blueberry pancakes with the wild berries we had found on the island.

A group decision was to scope out another well known fishing spot and tourist attraction, Curtain Falls, which was located on the east side of Iron Lake. We put away breakfast and headed to the falls. The wind had picked up quite a bit by this point so we did try to fish on the way but the wind, again, was making it challenging. I was glad we had grabbed the Petersen Island camp because all camps all the way to the falls were taken.

When we we arrived at the falls we were not surprised to see that the falls, though still a strong current, wasn't necessarily what it normally was based on the low water. This made us question whether the fishing would be as good as we had heard it could be at the falls. None the less, we made a quick lunch at the base of the current going into Iron and threw out some jigs and spinners. We quickly caught some smallies and I picked up a walleye using Mepp's and also jigs. The bite wasn't to fast so I opted after finishing up my PB & J to use the shore and the rocks available to walk up closer to the top of the falls to see how the fishing was. I presumed that not as many people took the time to walk and fish the pools between the lake and the base of the falls.

I arrived at what would be the second pool and switched over to a burnt orange jig head (worked in the morning on eyes) and a black ring worm. Instantly I started pulling in smallmouth in a variety of sizes from less than a pound to the 3 pound range. THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT DAY! In fact this could be one of the best days of fishing I have had in the BWCA.

After a couple bite offs from what I'm presuming are pike, I decide to move up to the third pool and hope that the guys back at the canoes are catching fish and not just wanting me to come back so that they can head back to camp.

"The fishing is to good, they can go back without me. I will swim back to camp HAHA"

As I began to fish the third pool I was using the ringworm and catching fish. I picked up some smallies, a pike, and a walleye! But after about 7-8 fish it seemed to die down. I switched to a rebel crawdad noticing the smallies were spitting out red residue, presumably digested crawdads but I only caught one fish on them. They weren't working real well. As I sat there contemplating what I could switch to the rest of the group hollered at me from up at the actual falls. They had cut around me on land to scope out the falls. I holler over to the "how are you guys doing?" They respond that they have caught some fish and Jon had caught 3 more walleye back to back at the first pool! I was happy for them as one of my primary goals of this trip was to make sure that I could get Jon and Nick on some quality fishing. Jon hooked into a pike from afar while I was still contemplating what to use.

Dad, decided with the wind he was ready to head back to camp and worked his way back to the canoes. The other three of us decided to fish but Jon and Nick stopped at my spot as I recalled to them how the fishing had been and what I had been using. I asked Jon what he had used to catch the fish and he said he had added a spinner attachment to his a swimbait.

Hmmmmm......that gave me an idea. I quickly pulled out my arsenal. Clear water with a tinge of brown from the tanins----so gold jig head with a gold spinner attachment. What else? Hmmmmmm.....well leeches always work well and the water is clear let's go with a black Powerbait twister tail......

BOOM! This lure was the ticket. Casting this out in the pool and slowly retrieving was it. Just like that I was on them. Bass, walleye, it didn't matter they all wanted what I was serving. It didn't take long before Jon and Nick had the same thing on and they were catching fish. I hope Captn' was enjoying his nap because he was missing out!

I'm convinced there were crappies in there to, unfortunately we weren't able to hook into one.

We headed back to camp into the wind towards camp to take a breather and prep for supper which consisted of some fresh walleye and soup. Just what we needed to replenish our energy after the wind.

So far, we haven't seen anyone on the lake aside from near the falls. It felt great to get away from everything happening in the world and detox on nature and fishing.

Next destination on our list was heading down through Petersen Bay to the falls of the Beartrap River. We had read that the fishing for all species would be great in the bay and since the wind was still raging on Iron this would give us a reprieve.

So after supper we switched up canoe partners, I went with Jon and Captn' went with Nick. Unfortunately the bay was not what we had imagined. It may have been a great place at normal water levels or in the early spring during spawn but this place wasn't going to produce what we wanted to catch, namely walleye and hoping for some large crappies. None the less, we paddled through the shallow grasses of the bay and past numerous beaver dens to the the falls which were barely spitting out water.

"Oh well, we have a story to tell and have seen the bay let's head back it's getting dark"

Jon thought he would put on a his "secret lure" and do a final cast next to the rock ledge at the "rapids". WHAM! 3.5 pound smallie! Okay that's a fluke, Jon just got lucky. As we continued down the shallow bay anytime we passed some rock's Jon would cast and hit smallie after smallie. I couldn't believe it. His lure was working! This Wh****r P***er :) :) is the real deal! (as of today two are added to my Amazon wish list HA)

We got back to camp as the sun was down and mosquito's came to satisfy their blood lust and hit the sack. We sat in the tents and reminisced about how great the days was and couldn't wait to get out tomorrow.