After a 10-1/2 car hour ride from Northern IL, our group arrived at Gunflint Northwoods Outfitters on Saturday Jun-01. We made our preparations, had dinner at Trail Center, and spent the night in the bunkhouse. Sunday morning, we left from Blankenberg Landing at about 8:30 AM under grey skies.

We followed the north shore as we traveled across Seagull, just in case the wind wanted to work against us. Shortly after we started our paddle, I picked up the first laker of the trip trolling a 3/4 oz blue+silver Rattlin'Rapala, north of the islands directly west of the entry point.

Seemed like a good start, but we did not catch any more while trolling. Just as well, we wanted to make Ogish by afternoon anyway. We made our way across Seagull-Alpine-Jasper-Kingfisher-Ogish and were on the island campsite #785 near Mueller falls by about 2:00 (nice site, held two 4-man tents easily). The sun had broken out by this time. We had lunch, set up camp, and went to the falls expecting to find walleye with our leeches, if nothing else. We ended up catching only one small walleye, but did get a bunch of smallies, a couple lakers, and the occasional northern. Smallies were caught on 4-in Silver Husky Jerks and similar sized X-Raps. Water was around 57 degrees and we were marking a bunch more fish than what we caught, mostly hovering around the bottom at 18 feet.

The temps the night before dipped down to 30 degrees, so it was a chilly morning. We decided to stay on Ogish today, and after a nice breakfast, tried trolling for lakers going N from the campsite and across the points and around islands. We marked fish at all of the likely locations, but could not muster much of a bite. After a slow morning, we had lunch back at camp, and headed for the southern part of the lake. Again, we focused on points and around and between the islands. We caught a few fish, including a laker on a jig and leech, and a few more smallies on the Husky Jerks. Again, marking fish at points and on the bottom anywhere from 10-20 feet. No walleye today.

Today we headed for SAK, making the 4 portages and arriving around noon of a nicely overcast day. We caught a northern and a smallie or two on the way at Jenny Lake, and thought we might fish there on the way back if time permitted. We fished around Eddy Falls a bit, catching Some nice sized smallies on Husky Jerks and on jigs with leeches, including the biggest SM of the trip: a fat female bursting with eggs. Water was around 58 degrees here. We ventured out to the bay leading to Toe Lake, and went into Toe for a try at some smallies. Toe was warmer, a hair over 60 degrees, and we could not find a smallie, but did get into several largemouth, along with a northern here and there.

We moved back out into SAK and fished reefs, points, and back in the bays. We managed some more smallies on the Husky Jerks, and my son caught the biggest walleye of the trip off of a point using a 3.5 inch Tube Bait (Pumpkin+Red/Green flakes) and 1/4 oz Tube Jig.

Although it would have been a great eating fish, he wanted to release it for another day, and so he did. This became his favorite lure for the rest of the trip. Back in the bays, we marked lots of fish typically on or near the bottom, but not very active.

After a couple more fish at Eddy Falls, we made our way back toward camp for dinner, where we had lake trout for dinner (and no walleye). On the way back through Eddy Lake, we noted the sound of rapids at the portage into Kekekabic Ponds.

Being our last day on Ogish, we decided to give Jenny Lake a try since we had gotten a little action there yesterday. With a nice grey sky above, we headed over, and immediately found scores of fish on the bottom at about 25 feet, just west of the narrows leading into the main part of the lake from the portage from Annie. They all hovered on or near the bottom, and would not hit anything we threw at them, including the new-found favorite tube jig. Water was around 58 degrees. We marked even more fish off of the adjacent shore at the bottom of a 70 foot hole. We made our way to the SW corner of the lake, where the wind wanted to blow us anyway. We marked goods numbers of fish in less than 10 feet of water, but again could not get much of a bite going.

We went up to the Eddy lake portage and ate lunch there. One canoe went into Eddy and caught smallies at the inlet from Kekekabic Ponds noted a day earlier. Our canoe stayed in the bay by the portage on Jenny where we caught numerous northern while trolling black+silver Shad Raps. We then made our way to the NE bay hoping for more active fish. We found them right away again, this time off of the S shore line, in big numbers all around the bottom at 10-15 feet. No action here, and we barely marked another fish in this bay.

We headed back toward our camp, figuring we would fish the falls below Mueller one more time, as we would be packing out tomorrow. We did catch more smallies (all females, all holding eggs) using the tube jig, and Husky Jerks/XRaps.

Had some fun with that, and enjoyed a nice sunset as we headed back to the island camp for dinner.

Today we moved out of Ogish with plans to spend the last night on Alpine. We would either fish it or Seagull on the way out of the BW in the morning. We decided we would spend a little time on Kingfisher where the inlet comes from Ogish. Our canoe got there first, and within 5 minutes I had a nice smallie on a black+silver F11 Rapala. We stayed there for about an hour catching smallies below the rapids, and then made our way on to Alpine.

Upon portaging into Alpine, we figured we should fish at below the falls coming in from Jasper, since most of our fish thus far had been taken at inlets. We marked some fish but there was not much action, except for a gigantic northern that tried to take a smallie off of one of our other canoes' stringer that was tied off of the bow. The head came out of the water and revealed itself as the biggest northern any of us had seen. After the excitement wore off, we moved on seeking a campsite at the N end of the lake which we were told had not been affected by the recent burn. That sate was occupied, so we worked our way around to the W side of the island across from the Seagull portage. This site was short on trees, but was comfortable enough for two tents. We watch an eagle watching us from the next island over, as we fried up a few fish for our last fish of the trip (almost).

Our last day in the BW was a beautiful sunny day, and we decided to move directly across the portage to Seagull and spend some time fishing there before heading up to our exit. We went directly to the short portage inlet from Alpine to see what it held. There we found 3-6 feet of water, and not much action. Then my son pulled in the big fish of the trip, a good-sized northern that barely fit into our folding net. Not as big as the monster we saw yesterday, but the biggest fish he ever caught.

After he was released, we moved down the river, and caught a couple of smallies along the bank leading out to the bay (Black+Silver XRap and F11). We marked a lot fish in the opening to the bay and took a couple more smallies there. Then we decide to cast up against the rock wall in the SE corner of the bay, which was about 61 degrees, and there and around the first point with a campsite, we caught 12 or more smallies on our favorite black+silver Rapalas again. This, we said, was the kind of fishing we were looking for all week, and it capped off a good trip for smallies.

When it got to be that time, we had our last lunch at campsite #455 on the point looking over the main body of Seagull, then paddled our way across and up to Blankenberg. Got there at 3:40 despite an east wind, and shortly before 7:00 we were at Trail Center for the last fish fry of the trip (all you can eat!).