It is always tough to leave a great campsite, but we had decided to head to Russell, so we packed up and moved through Sturgeon Narrows. We had no desire to take the "Staircase" portage, but mostly just wanted to take our time and fish our way in. We were again blessed with a tailwind that blew us eastward, and we were able to fish easily through the narrows. Greg picked up a nice 25" walleye on the way through, but the fish seemed fairly scattered in this area of current. We only picked up one decent smallie on our whole way through there, despite cruising by some very fishy looking structure.

As we turned southeast towards the outflow of Russell, we heard a commotion from Brett and Steve's boat that Brett had a big pike on. Brett literally has a 25 year-old 4-piece fishing rod with 20-year old line, and as we paddled over we could see the bend in it. It took him a good 20 minutes to subdue the fish and he landed it without breaking his line somehow (he had no steel leader either). It was a dandy that we measured at 38", but it had such a big head that I think it's going to grow much bigger:

After the excitement, we fished our way up to where the outlow starts and had lunch. It looked like a good place to fish:

The current was going through the Russell Rapids fairly well, and Greg and I weren't feeling too adventurous, so we took the portage. Brett and Steve ferried across and were able to paddle up the outflow without too much problem. We fished our way into Russell, looking at campsites along the way. We came across two that I had heard good things about, but neither had our required three tent pads. We had heard that Russell is a busy lake, but we hadn't seen anyone in there even by mid-afternoon. Our boats split up to scout out campsites and we were keeping in touch via walkie-talkie radios about our progress. Brian and Pete had worked they way around to the outflow of Chatterton Falls and taken a campsite there. They reported that there were no people around at all, which I thought was remarkable for that part of the lake. As we headed their way, a group of four came in behind us and took one of the sites that we had looked at on an island near the outflow. We set up camp, and then headed over to start pitching jigs and hardbaits into the froth. The fishing for walleye and pike was good but sporadic, but certainly kept our attention. There are some really deep holes in that part of the lake, as my depthfinder got to 120' once or twice. I wonder if Russell holds lakers, but the stained water quality would lead me to think that it doesn't. What was interesting is that no smallies were caught, and we were beginning to realize that they weren't "on" this week. Pete is a diehard smallmouth fisherman, but he didn't seem to mind pulling in nice-sized walleyes all week long.

A gorgeous sunset graced us as we fished the mouth of Chatterton Falls: