In the morning, both Laurie and I commented on the silence of the previous night as being almost scary...we've spent our share of time in the woods camping, but never had such a quiet evening as that one. And yet...it felt good at the same time. We both felt rested and enjoyed our morning coffee on the South facing rock looking out on the lake with a sense of wonder in that we'd been there for almost a day and hadn't seen or heard another human. No one had traveled through, and no planes had flown over...it was just what I had been looking for on this trip, but I had expected to find that on Bear Trap or Thunder lake...and not on Gull.

We finished our coffee, had a protein shake, struck camp and left our gear in packs at the landing site, and then headed out in the canoe for a morning of fishing. We trolled the North shore, with Laurie getting all the action. She pulled in a little perch, I got a snag, she got a northern, I got another snag, and then we arrived at the rocks just west of the middle campsite on Gull. There are some huge boulders in the water here...and while we casted about, we snagged just as many as we reeled in, so we headed just west of there, to the little bay in front of the portage to Mudhole. I recalled the gravel shore, the huge supply of minnows, the presence of weeds and reeds, and thought this looked like a "fishy" bay. I was right. Laurie pulled in three fish in her first three casts, and though they were all too small, they were a walleye, northern, and smallmouth in that order. I'd never seen that before in my long life of fishing, and she was smiling wide like a kid who'd just caught his first. I may just have a fishing' buddy for life after that morning, and it only got better. Seeing as the fish she landed were small-ish, I suggested we try a little deeper and we trolled out beyond the weeds to the West, toward the Western-most campsite. We'd gone not fifty feet when she tied into, and landed, a beautiful nineteen inch walleye. As I removed it and put it on the stringer, I suggested we try drifting past that spot again, and turned the boat around right in front of the camp spot there when she pulled in another 17". It was all I could do to get them off her hook and on to the stringer before she'd land another walleye and within half an hour we were ready to head off for a shore lunch that couldn't be beat. We feasted on walleye dipped in Shore-lunch breading and pan fried with a side of Mountain Home wild rice mixed with M-H dried peas. While we ate our fill, a party came in through the West entrance to the lake and moved across and out (we presumed) toward Thunder and Bear Trap. We wished them well with their trip. Our bellies full of fish, we paddled over to the East camp, picked up our packs and bid adieu to the beautiful fishery of Gull lake. I'd go back there to camp, enjoy the silence, and eat the fish, any day of the week. Just call me up...I'm on board.

We looked at the weather which was starting to produce a good breeze, and thought about staying another night on Gull rather than head South...but we thought of the moose on Fairy lake and decided to see if we could get that East camp site again, and if not we'd head into Boot and camp at the "middle" point there. So we paddled over to the portage on the East end of Gull where a 3x3 buck stood eating wild rice shoots and we packed down to Gun Lake and bid our farewell to lovely Gull. Gun was reasonably quiet water even with the good breeze (from the NW) and so we enjoyed a nice easy paddle through the "grip" and down to the portage where we met a group that was inbound and headed for Crooked lake. They looked like serious fishermen, and while I couldn't persuade them to head up to Gull for the walleye, they were interested in what we'd been using. I bid them good luck with their trip and we headed back into Fairy lake, finding our East site open again so we headed for that...just as a group hit the South landing. We were already on the water though, so we had the jump on them and soon were back at our old camp spot enjoying the view from the hilltop. We were looking forward to another late night moose possibility, but the group that had hit the lake from the South took up residence at the NE site near the portage to Gun, and proceeded to swim and frolic complete with war whoops and yelps that echoed across the lake and, I'm almost certain, well into Boot and Gun on either side. Refreshingly, someone in that camp blew a whistle at 8pm and all was silent after that (and for the next morning). However...there was no evening moose call, though we did enjoy some terrific loon calls that night. Dinner was M-H lasagne with meat and cheese, and it was good...that one stays on the list for next year. We topped it off with M-H raspberry crumble, also a good choice, and took delight in our last evening in the BWCA, snapping photos as the sun subsided into the trees.