Day 3 Sunday May 11th, 2008 Oyster Lake back to Moose River by way of Oyster River, Ramshead Creek to Ramshead Lake (intended destination for Pike fishing-including on the fly rods). Unanticipated detour to Lamb Lake and back to Nina Moose Lake.

Sunday woke up with a plan to head down to Ramshead for some pike fishing. Portaged back to the Oyster River and ran into a group we had followed up the Moose River. Nice group-hope they enjoyed their stay on Oyster! Paddled down the Oyster River all the way back to Moose River (south of Agnes). Paddled right over a couple beaver dams. Ran the section of rapids rather than taking the 20 rod portage without any difficulty. Once back on the Moose River south of Agnes we trolled and picked up some nortons on raps. Got one decent pike ~34". Paddled up Ramshead Creek to the 160 rod portage. This was pretty soupy in a couple places. After hopping back in the canoe we were surprised to find a nice beaver dam gateway to Ramshead Lake. Portage on the left.

Now for the fun part. This all happened about 2-3pm on Sunday. I would be curious to know if anyone had similar experience or trouble with a group of paddlers in this area. We trolled down Ramshead and quickly realized we were not alone. There appeared to be only one group on the lake but they were making their presence known. There appeared to be two canoes. One green-presumably royalex boat (based on color) but it was parked at the NW campsite just north of the midlake islands so it was too far away to get more identifiers. The other boat was white or shiney aluminum and this was paddled by a couple teens to the larger eastern island. The teens were yelling at the top of their lungs back to the group at camp-and vice-versa. I thought it was pretty obnoxious but not criminal. When they realized they weren't alone the teens yelled (honestly you could hear them ACROSS the lake) "we've got company.” I felt like their yelling might be an attempt to drive us away and keep the lake to themselves. We kept paddling and didn't say anything, gesture anything or in any way invite a confrontation. We kept trolling heading for a campsite further down the western shore which I had hoped would be sheltered from their noise. We were now on the south side of the islands probably 100-150 yards SW from the teens on the island. At that point we were scared crapless by what I think was a gunshot. Looking back based on the gunsmoke it was clearly fired out over the water. It appeared to have been fired within a 90 degree cone-generally in our direction. I doubt that they were firing on us but I understood it to be an intimidation tactic/harassment. In retrospect it is possible that the noise was a firecracker. Regardless it was illegal and poor form. Rather than invite trouble we decided to hightail it out of there. At that point the boys were chopping wood on the island. We assumed they were getting firewood for camp but by the time we reached the south end of the lake it was clear that the kids were now starting a fire on the island (no campsite, no firegrate, not a brain between 'em). when we reached the portage to Lamb the smoke was 20-30 ft high and billowing. The portage to Lamb was actually really nice-airy and flat. The portage from Lamb to Nina Moose was as advertised-brutal. The initial climb from Lamb was tough. In fact the climbing never seemed to end. There were some wet sections and the portage was just plain long ~2/3 mile. There was one large downed tree in the trail which we were able to skirt around. Probably should have chopped and dragged it off the trail but we were exhausted and split up so we didn't-sorry! We were bummed that we didn't get to do our fly fishing for pike on Ramshead but we had a beautiful night and sunset on the southern campsite between the Moose and Portage Rivers. Great site for 1 tent. We made muffins in the bakepacker oven in honor of Clayton’s Birthday.