Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

A Group of Newbies
by beanman

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 05/30/2009
Entry & Exit Point: Moose/Portage River (north) (EP 16)
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 6
Day 3 of 7
Monday, June 01, 2009.

My tent woke up around 5:30 am, probably a result of the rock in my back and me not being able to lay there anymore. It was cold enough that our breath had condensed on the inside of the tent. I built up a fire right away and unpacked our breakfast for the morning, fresh eggs, bacon and toast. It tasted excellent as did the hot cocoa. We took a lot of time getting our fishing gear rounded up and ready. Finally around 9:00 am we were all out on the water, fishing for Walleye on Lake Agnes. We didn’t get anything in front of camp and eventually all separated. Carl and Lynn went to the east side of Agnes by the islands and the other 4 headed north to the Boulder River. Fishing was slow, yielding only a smallmouth by TJ and a crappie by Lynn. Lynn caught a couple small walleye later that morning with no other fish to be had. TJ, Yeller, dad and I went below the rapids past the 23 rod portage to fish for smallmouth, but there were 4 other canoes and it was too congested for my liking. We tried the north shore of the Boulder river and worked it east to the no-name creek near the 65 rod portage into Boulder Bay. We caught about 10 little northern along the way, but nothing of any significant size. We headed back to camp after being bored with the fishing. Yeller was sick because he took about 4 too many Excedrin. After a few hours he snapped out of it and was back to normal.

When we got back to camp Lynn and Carl were nowhere to be found, and weren’t responding on the radio. TJ and I took a hike south along the shoreline for .3 miles until we reached them on the radio. They came back with their 2 walleye and 1 crappie, which was enough to give us all a nice compliment to the steaks for dinner. We didn’t fish that night after supper, instead opting to sit around the campfire and have some typical campfire discussions.