We arose to the Sun peeking its way through the clouds, a welcome sight. Packing up took a little longer than normal this morning, as we did our best to clean and dry our muddy gear. The worst of which being our tent. Although it held up valiantly to the rain, the strong winds caused a thin layer of dust to accumulate on everything inside of it.

This was our second travel day of the trip, but we had made solid ground on day 1 so it was just one portage over to Gillis to find a new site. On the way out of Crooked, I tried out the trolling rig that came highly recommended from other BWCA fishermen. A three-eighths oz blue and silver Little Cleo tied to a three way swivel with a weight hanging off one end, trolling in the 30 - 40 foot range. My heart began racing when the rod tip bent much farther than a normal trolling bend. Was this our first Lake Trout? Could it really be so simple? As I reeled in the fish didn't have much fight in it, mostly letting me drag it through the water. Pike… It was the biggest one yet, but not really what I was aiming for. A good feeling nonetheless, when you try out a new rig and it works. We ran into another couple at the portage who we had met earlier in the trip. The woman exclaimed to Josie that she had a feeling they had been following in her footsteps. They went off ahead as another two groups rolled up behind us, busy portage. Gillis Lake has 6 or 7 sites and with so many groups on their way I wanted to make sure we got a decent site. The one on the Southeast corner of the map was circled as one with good reviews, but it’s the only one on that side and if it was taken we'd have to paddle across the whole lake directly into the wind coming from the Northwest. I decided we would take a sharp left immediately after the Portage and go through what looked like a skinny strip of water leading to the Western side of the lake. There were 5 or so sites along this strip, so we'd be sure to find something.

Little tip, if you see a very small portion of water on your map in the BWCA, it most likely is impassable by boat. To our dismay this plan backfired and there was a little beaver dam blocking our path. At this point the groups we were trying to get out in front of had moved out onto the lake in the proper direction, and I really didn’t want to turn around. We made a sketchy short portage pass of the dam. In retrospect I’m glad we went this way though, as we paddled past three small islands on the western side of the Lake. This area was shielded from the wind with a big mound looming over it from the North. One of the islands had a pristine sandy beach, and we decided this would be the location of our day trip the following day.

The island campsite nearby was open, however it didn’t look all that great. It would be a good last resort if everything else was taken, but we could do better. The next closest site was taken so we moved on following along the northwestern shoreline of Gillis. The following site was occupied by our friends from the portage earlier. I looked around and got a little jealous, it’s an awesome site with a huge rocky point nearby that you can explore. We exchanged some words on how well they did and we moved on to the next site along the shoreline. This one was open, with a massive sloping rock greeting you as you paddle up to it. It was to be our home for the next two nights. While I wasn't initially blown away, the site had some charm. It’s a really big site, with a long walk back to two tent pads and the latrine. The fire grate is situated on top of the sloping rock face, with a possible small tent pad behind it (albeit on quite an angle). There’s a short path you can take to the left that leads to a good hammock spot right along the shore, and another possible hammock spot near the tent pads. While it wasn’t an A+ site, it really grew on us as we settled in. The big rock face is perfect for jumping into the lake, and in my opinion it has to be the best shore fishing site on the lake. You could easily fit four people on that rock casting out into 30 to 40 feet of water along a drop off. Later that night only confirmed my suspicions, as we saw many Trout surfacing.

I got my Cleo snagged while casting, so Josie and I took a trip out in the canoe to un-snag it and troll the drop-off a bit. No luck on fishing this evening, but we still had all day tomorrow to catch that elusive Laker. Dinner was some of my favorite freeze dried meals, Good To Go’s Mushroom Risotto, and Peak Refuel’s Coconut Curry. They went surprisingly well together. Sunsets were lackluster on our trip due to Canadian wildfire haze, but it luckily cleared out for some quality stargazing. One shooting star each and Mimi was content packing it in for the night.

Not the type to dump water on full logs, I stayed up late burning every little piece in the fire grate to ash. It brings me joy to “clean out” the fire pit and leave it bone dry so it’s super easy to get a fire started the next day. At that point a small dump from the Nalgene and a stir with the fire poker is plenty to put the fire out. Mimi got a little worried that something happened to me and came out to check. We slept under the stars with our rain fly half off, covering the feet side of our tent.