I learned the hard way the importance of tying down your canoe at camp, or on a portage, even if you’re just taking a lunch stop. Here’s what might happen if you’re not careful.

It’s early June and you arrive at a nice campsite on a clear, deep lake known for big lake trout. The site has a very nice smooth ledgerock landing. It’s not that steep and a good place to pull the canoe up. The next day is sunny and warm with a modest wind blowing away from your campsite into the lake. You decide it’s a good day for catching a big laker.

After breakfast and then a couple hours and no luck, you head back to camp for a break and tell your son, “Hey, let’s go look for that message cache that’s in the woods somewhere”. So you pull the canoe up on the ledgerock, and put the fishing poles on shore against a couple of pines. You begin heading into the woods to find the message jar.

About 50 yards in, you hear a strange scraping noise. After walking about 20 more yards, it dawns on you… CRAP!! You rush back to the ledgerock and see your canoe quickly floating away from shore with your PFDs in the canoe. It’s about 25 yards from shore now and heading to the southeast where it’ll likely run up on a long peninsula.

There’s no way to swim for the canoe as the water is still quite cold. You're looking at the prospect of a short swim across a shallow 20-yd narrow channel between a bay and the main part of the lake where you’re canoe is floating away, then a bushwhack of a mile or more around the shore perimeter to fetch it.

So what do you do?

You've got lake trout lures and the boat is 25 yards away? Quick, get casting for your boat! I once had a "drift-away" and was able to snag it with about a 12 foot tree branch that blew down on the portage.

Jaywalker: "You've got lake trout lures and the boat is 25 yards away? Quick, get casting for your boat! I once had a "drift-away" and was able to snag it with about a 12 foot tree branch that blew down on the portage. "

I like this idea. I watched a video yesterday of a man in Ukraine who snagged an ice floe with a kid on it and pulled the kid to shore. Snagging ice is way harder than snagging a canoe.

Snagging it with a lure would be my first option and something I would think of immediately. If that fails then a swim and bushwack would be up next. I would probably bring a dry sack with clothes and fire starter along. It would be extra flotation and warmth once you get to shore.

But if a swim is an option, why not just go after the canoe now before it gets too far away?

I once retrieved my canoe with a rock and rope. So Get the bear rope and give it a try

Early June? The day it happens, sunny and warm? I would do the 20yd swim. No problem.

JW

JWilder: "Early June? The day it happens, sunny and warm? I would do the 20yd swim. No problem.

JW "

I go to the most years in early June and go swimming every day if I can. Sometimes I stay out in the water for 20-30 minutes. So I would go swim and get it. But I’m half Polar bear.

Savage Voyageur: "

JWilder: "Early June? The day it happens, sunny and warm? I would do the 20yd swim. No problem.

JW "

I go to the most years in early June and go swimming every day if I can. Sometimes I stay out in the water for 20-30 minutes. So I would go swim and get it. But I’m half Polar bear. "

We are a dying breed...

Well, after running back from the woods, I saw the canoe quickly floating away. Luckily I found some more flat-ish ledgerock about 30 yards to the south so I could follow the track of the canoe to the southeast.

That's when it dawned on me and I yelled for my son to "Matt, bring the fishing poles, hurry!!" One of our rods had a deep husky jerk and the other a 3/4 oz Cleo. I took the HJ and Matt the cleo and we proceeded to launch a couple casts at the canoe, missing each time. Then on either the third or fourth cast, Matt landed his Cleo right into the canoe , now about 40 yards away....he reeled up slowly and the lure hooked into the bow seat. He carefully reeled his huge lunker into shore.

Talk about a relief!! We proceeded to actually tie the dang canoe down and went back into the woods to find the message cache... which we did. This all happened on McIntyre in the Quetico on campsite LH. And we did eventually catch some nice lakers.

That’s awesome. Nice save. Great story.

I have been on that same rock, I always tie the canoe. With the bow down storm i saw my Minny 2 lift up six feet off of the ground. Thanks to a handy stand of cedars and my son's quick reaction the canoe never even suffered a scratch. What amazed us is a group with aluminum canoes at the portage landing watched their canoes drift away into the wind. There must have been a terrific under toe going on to cause that. They were more concerned about getting wet than to bother with the loaded canoes.