Wednesday morning surprisingly offered a bit of sunshine for us to wake up to. There was a big storm on the way in the evening so we welcomed any bit of sun we could get. As we began gathering our gear for our day trip, a short paddle and mini portage over a dam to Jerry Lake, my heart suddenly sank. The distinct red handle of the rubber fishing net I had bought before the trip was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn't recall ever seeing it since we made camp the night before. You see, as we were portaging the day before, it came to our attention that the carabiner attached to the handle of the net was actually a very weak magnet. This thing was a real piece of crap, and the net fell off my pack multiple times while portaging. I should have known better at that point and bungeed it to my pack, but unfortunately that was not the case. We loaded up the canoe and headed back to the portage between Owl and Crooked in hopes that we had left it sitting right on the shoreline there. It was in the same direction as Jerry, so worth a trip to check for it. Alas, we did not have any luck after scanning this portage. Mimi and I debated going back to the previous portage as well but decided to cut our losses and move on with our plans, net-less. I was pretty pissed at myself for losing it in such a boneheaded way, but hopefully somebody grabbed it and will get good use out of it.

A short paddle over to Jerry and a quick hop out of the canoe to bring it across the mucky beaver dam and we had arrived at our destination around 11am. The goal for the day was to catch ourselves some dinner, and Jerry Lake did not disappoint. It’s a long skinny lake, fairly shallow, tons of lily pads, and absolutely loaded with Pike. I rigged up our rods with what I figured was the best tackle for the job. For Mimi, a black Whopper Plopper lent to us by my friend Pat for the trip. Less likely to get tangled in the weeds and would provide for some awesome top water action. For me, a weedless booyah jig with a dark green frog plastic. It was a fairly windy day with the storm on the way so we dropped anchor (a tied up basketball net with a rock from shore), and began casting in the first bay. First cast, Mimi had a big splash but didn’t hook the fish. No matter, if that was any indication we were in for some good fishing. I dropped my jig into the water a few feet from the boat and within seconds it got taken by what I can only imagine was a pretty large Pike. This thing took off, started spooling out drag, and almost instantly my line snapped. Back home, I’ve been fishing exclusively with fluorocarbon, but opted to go with 8 lb mono for this trip since I didn't want to deal with tangled lines during the precious time we had. Lesson learned, a simple trilene knot with 8 lb mono wasn’t going to cut it against the bigger fish out there. I tied up some leaders made from a swivel and 20 lb fluoro and began doubling up the line on the trilene knots, no more issues.

Meanwhile, Mimi had some more top water action with the plopper, but still wasn't able to hook it. She cast it out again and it landed smack dab on top of a patch of lily pads. The pads dragged it under where it got stuck in something, most likely a log. Sorry Pat, I’ll buy you a new one. I tied on a spinner for her and she tried that a few times but was pretty discouraged at this point. Since the goal was to catch dinner, she set down the rod and was content letting me do my thing while she relaxed in the front of the boat with Josie. We moved on to the center of the lake which was more of the same, prime Pike habitat. Working our way along the weed edge, I sorted my way through tons of smaller Pike looking for some eaters. I hooked a medium sized one pretty deep, and while he was a questionable eater, by the time I got the hook out there was no question, he was dinner. We got one more eater shortly before we had to pack it up with the storm on the way. This guy had no intention of being on the menu and sliced my fingers up pretty good as I tried to land and string him up without a net.

With our Pike dinner in tow, we made our way back to camp and I filleted them to the best of my abilities. We were going to have to eat around the bones, as it was my first time filleting Pike. The plan was to just roast them over the fire and eat them with some chicken noodle soup. Looking up at the sky, I foolishly thought maybe the storm wasn’t going to hit us after all. We started the fire and a few minutes later… total downpour. That time spent figuring out how to hang a Tarp came in mighty handy here. We grabbed our firewood, tied down the canoe and made our way under the tarp as quickly as possible. It wasn’t the finest setup in the world but it held up enough to keep us mostly dry.

Once the storm had passed, I set out to start a fire in our sad, soggy excuse of a fire grate. Digging out the ash revealed more water underneath, this wasn't going to work. I had an idea though, off into the woods to locate the largest downed tree nearby. I peeled off a sizable piece of bark, a nice dry platter to build the fire on would hopefully do the trick. It worked like a charm and we soon had a fire going to warm our chilled bones and finally cook dinner. By the time we were ready to eat, it was dark and the bugs were ruthless. We ate dinner in the tent, cleaned up and went to bed pretty early; it was off to Gillis in the morning.