Tuesday, August 04, 2020

Day 4 Travel Day. It was another cold night with a low recorded at 51 degrees. We woke up to an absolutely beautiful morning! We were up early and there was mist all across the water, we were completely misted in. After about 20 minutes you could feel the sun burning through the clouds and the lake changed so quickly!!! There was literally no wind and as patches of fog were disappearing and the lake was being exposed bit by bit. I have never seen anything like it, it was really something to behold!!

Morning Fog Clearing quickly absolutely beautiful

While this interrupted our packing, we still were on the water a little before 8am. The skies were blue, no wind, the water was a mirror and it was warming up quickly!! We made great time and were at our first portage before to long. The Little Sag to Rattle Lake portage is really beautiful in my opinion. It is only 26 rods and some up and down but takes you a long a stream that is really peaceful. It was one of my favorite portages of the trip. Maybe it was the angle of the sun, no clouds in the sky and the time of day. This is burn area although I am not sure from what fire so there was newer growth everywhere.

I loved this portage Entrance into Rattle Lake

We were across Rattle Lake in no time and on to the portage to Gabimichigami Lake. Gabi Lake is big. The map doesn’t give it justice. I think its an illusion as there are other lakes in the BWCA that are just as big (ala Little Sag), but Gabi is an unbroken expanse of water. There are no islands to break up the lake or hide behind. We were feeling very blessed and fortunate that the day had no wind to speak of. With a north, south, east or west wind, or any combination of directional winds of any substance would make this lake a challenge. The next portage was a float through. We paddled to the beginning of the stream/river between Gabi and Agamok Lake, got out and wadded/floated the canoes to the other side. Easiest portage ever! If one were to take the actual portage its only 18 rods, but why do all the work if you can leverage your natural resources? Work smarter, not harder. Right?

Gaby, the lake with no islands Gaby, no wind, blue skies = perfect Gaby - objects in picture look larger than they appear Float portage!! I will take one of these every time!

Agamok Lake is a smaller lake and we were across shortly. This lake had some shallow spots that we had to look out for but we got across with no major issues and started the portage to Mueller Lake which was 114 rods and had some degree of difficulty. Just from reading reviews and stories on this website I knew the next two portages would be challenging. But reading about portages and experiencing portages are two different things. The one saving grace on this portage is that once we got the canoes across, we took a little break and saw Agamok Falls off the Kekekabic Trail. Totally worth the side trip!! The falls were impressive!!! We had lunch at the falls and then turned back and went on our way.

Amagok Falls

Mueller is a smaller lake as well and we were across in no time. The only bad thing about a short paddle is your legs have not recovered from the last difficult portage and your back at it. And the portage from Mueller to Ogishkemuncie Lake was the hardest albeit not the longest of the trip. Measuring 107 rods in distance, there is quite a bit of rocky elevation change to contend with. When we got done with this portage, we were all ready to find a campsite. Luckily for us we planned on staying on Ogish Lake that night. As we were paddling, we started to notice more and more people. We wanted to be on the eastern portion of Ogish to make our last day a little shorter while still avoiding the bear trouble areas on Alpine and Seagull. It was early afternoon as we paddled through the narrows on Ogish and as we came out into the main part on the eastern side, we just happened to see a group leaving a campsite that we were interested in. We stayed on Ogish last year and wanted the same campsite but could tell that it wasn’t available so this site almost straight across the lake would work so we snagged it. The timing worked out perfect!!

setting out on another lake, I think this was Ogish..... I need to take better notes.... Campsite for the night, not the one we wanted but there were a lot of people out and we weren't going to let this one pass.

Campsite 790. This campsite is on the south side of the lake in the eastern portion before the narrows if you are heading west. Its is not a bad site. It has a really nice hammock set up right on the water that I enjoyed for two nights despite the colder temps. The nicest tent pad is on the south side of the campsite in a little grove of trees with another bigger tent pad behind the firegrate area. There was a nice tree to hang our bear bags about 100 yds if you take the trail that goes east. We had both bear bags hung there with no problem. Definitely not the best site in the area but it did the job. It was still relatively early so we set up camp and took a BWCA bath also known as a swim. It felt really good after the long hard day. Once changed and dried off we lounged and decided to break our streak of catching no fish for the trip. We had a fair assortment of lures and leeches at our disposal so cast we did. Nate was the first one on the board with a smaller smallmouth bass. We would go on to catch 3 northern and the aforementioned smallmouth that night right off the front of the campsite, no size of consequence, in about an hour right at sunset. With tomorrow being a planned rest day, Nate and I were going to check out a fishing spot that Andy gave us a heads up on.

Rods portaged: 287.08 (0.89 miles) Lakes Traveled: Little Saganaga Lake, Rattle Lake, Gabimichigami Lake, Agamok Lake, Mueller Lake, Ogishkemuncie Lake

First fish of the trip!! Another spectacular sunset!! And the night cap