Day Three -
We got up early, had a quick breakfast and broke down camp so we could head back north. It took a few extra minutes to find the portage out of Fat again because it is set back in a grassy area.
Our plan was to retrace our way back to Gun Lake and then go over to Takucmich Lake and camp there for a couple more nights. The 80 rod portage from Gun to Tesaker Lake is marked on the wrong site of the creek on the both the Fisher & McKenzie brand maps. These maps show it very near & to the left of the one campsite on the lake. This single campsite looks like it hasn’t been used in years. The trail is actually quite a bit left of the campsite & you need to search a little for it.
The 25 rod trails from Tesaker to Takucmich Lake is another hard to find portage. We searched along the shoreline for a while trying to find it. Then I heard voices & told Lynn that “I bet the trail is over there where those two guys are standing!” The people were Ron Bushbam & his dad, from Lac La Croix outfitters and were the first people we had seen since we had left the towboat that first day. After a bit of small talk, we found out that they had taken the campsite we had wanted to use.
The 25 rod portage is fairly flat and the Forest Service has constructed a boardwalk over a marshy area. Along the trail we spotted a number of bones from a small deer. Mark Zup had told us that he heard that the island campsite on the lake was actually the nicest but we wanted to be closer to the portage out so we took the middle site. It was a very nice flat campsite and had a couple nice tent pad areas too. After camp was set up, I threw out a couple bobbers with nightcrawlers & we fished for smallmouth bass.