Wednesday, July 01, 2009 We have decided to stay on Shell for an extra day so the boys and Maureen sleep in till about 8am. The sun is not shining but there is no rain and the temp is up a bit. It is cool with lots of grey clouds but long sleeves suffice. The boys start a fire and Maureen puts together a hot breakfast of eggs and bacon. Raleigh suddenly exclaims that there is a moose in the bay across from the campsite. I pulled out the camera and binoculars and we enjoyed a great breakfast and 30 minutes of moose watching before he ambled back into the woods. After a quick cleanup of pots and pans we head out for some fishing.
Keegan and I went over to investigate the portage to Heritage and took a walk. The Heritage end of the portage is very rocky. We talked to two guys coming back to Shell who said they spent the night on Heritage and were giving up on the fishing due to wind and rocks and absolutely no bite. We went back to Shell and started fishing the shoreline using our basketball net anchor effectively and catching a fair number of smallies and bluegills. We had a wonderful opportunity to sit and watch a mink play along the shore line and fish for minnows, Keegan thought this was big fun. We all went back to camp for a quick lunch and a short nap.
About 4pm we all went out for more fishing. This was a big surprise as Maureen had wanted to do a lot of reading and had never really fished before but she was thoroughly enjoying the time with Raleigh catching fish. Keegan and I took some of Mark’s advice and went across Shell to try another area for some Walleye. We scouted around for about 45 minutes before I found a small muddy hump in about 15 feet of water and we set the anchor. Keegan dropped a leech under a slip bobber and I threw a Rapala. Thanks to Keegan’s grandfather, a native Minnesotan and a great fisherman, Keegan has an incredible touch for an 11 year old on walleye and he was soon reeling in his first eye of the trip. I changed to a leech and the fun started. We quickly discovered that we were in the eye honey hole as we boated more than a 2 dozen fish over the next 2 hours including several in the 25 inch range. Keegan was catching fish very consistently and not missing many. It will be hard to forget his smile and his nonstop laughter. He took to calling himself the “eye slayer”. Eventually decided we better head back for dinner and with 5 walleye on the stringer we figured that was more than enough for 4 people.
We got back to camp only to find that Maureen and Raleigh had some success and had a stringer of fish themselves. We had a HUGE and very tasty fish dinner with some fresh vegetables over the fire. The boys cleaned up dinner and we relaxed for the evening. Keegan started a diary for the trip and we eventually hit the sack after I enjoyed a nice cocktail to end the day. A quick note about the latrine at this site, it is pretty full! The Forest Service is going to need to get out and do some work before the season ends I think.