Thursday, June 03, 2010 Planned on taking it pretty easy again today. Figured to explore/fish the SW part of the lake today, especially around the islands. By now Vickie had really come into her own as a wilderness camper. She really caught on quickly. She knew what to do and when. AND was able to do it. Knew what to pack for our daytrips without me having to double check everything. Alot of this may sound simple? But I've had people along where, I've had to OK most everything. Including eating when they're hungry! I thought we REALLY worked well together to get things done around camp. Thus maximizing our time where we could be out on the lake or just to sit back and relax.
I asked Vickie if she would like to go out somewhere for lunch today? She just laughed and gave me a, "Yeah! right!" look. I told her I was serious. We'll bring some food and stop at the nicest campsite we find. LOL Once again it was a lovely day. Just enough of a breeze. We trolled over to the islands but didn't have much luck. After exploring most of the southern portion of the lake we decided to pull into the island campsite for our lunch "date".
The site was very nice. We could tell someone had just left it that morning, or maybe the day before. The grass on both of the tent pads was still all matted down. It had a very nice canoe landing with several fairly tall red pines stretching across the shoreline. The firegrate area was also very ice, but could've used a few large trees in closer proximity to provide some shade. All in all I'd give it 4 stars. Once again, there were wild roses in abundance along with several other flowers in bloom. We set about making our lunch as the heat of the day bore down on us.
After eating, while Vickie was down by the lake getting some water to clean the dishes. I was still up at the firegrate area tearing down the stove and packing things away when I heard what sounded like a fairly large stick crack. I turned slightly to my left, looking back up the site towards the tent pads. It was only a glimpse. But as I turned I seen a small black bear quickly scurry back into the cover of the surrounding brush & woods. It had happened so fast I didn't know what to think? I watched the woods for a few moments. I didn't see or hear anything. Figured it was still probably running away? When Vickie came back up from the lake I told her about the brief encounter. Guess who's coming to dinner??!! Her first response was, "did you get a picture?" LOL As we discussed it further she said she thought she had heard some larger branches or sticks cracking as we were eating. Apparently I was oblivious? I thought back and all I could remember was a couple of squirrels making a bunch of noise. Likely he was there watching us the whole time? At any rate he was gone now and we were about to be so..........Hopefully he doesn't cause a problem for anyone down the road?
We had our best success fishing on Kekekabic between this island and the ones just to the west. It isn't all that wide between these islands, but it sure does drop off quickly. Never caught anything all that big, maybe 20 inches was max? As we paddled through I happened to notice a large head swimming in the water in the distance. (And no. It wasn't a giant snake.) At first I thought it might be a moose so I picked up the pace paddling. As we got a bit closer it became obvious that it was a doe, a deer, a female deer. We watched as it island hopped. Just as it caming to shore on the big island,(likely to visit the bear?) I had a strike. Another laker. Let all of them go today. Not that this is one of my stedfast rules, but I figured one meal of fish per lake per visit was a good limit to set?
As evening approached we paddled back towards camp. We stopped to check out the site nearest ours to the west. I didn't think it was too bad. It looked like there was a trail running between the 2? Probably beat down in searches for downed firewood? Back at our site we found that we also had a visitor in camp. A painted (mud) turtle was making his way across our site. Vickie told him he could stay as long as he kept out of her sleeping bag.
Vickie had been keeping some rocks along the way that she found interesting or pretty. It reminded me of a book I'd read some years back. Portage Into The Past: by J. Arnold Bolz. In that story, his wife was stashing one rock from each lake they visited along thier route into the pack. Was a great moment when he & his buddy finally realized they were also lugging around a bunch of rocks. When Vickie asked me if she could keep hers, I said as long as they don't find their way into my pack you can take all the rocks you want!
We both had gotten really atteached to this lake and site. We headed up to our firegrate point to enjoy our last evening at this wonderful site. And to catch our neighbors. Each evening we sat up here the same couple of loons came parading by, very close to our site. I presumed they were the same because while one glided smoothly across the water, the other had a very noticeable wobble in it's stroke. It was always quite the sight.
This was to be our last night on Kekekabic. Though there was no signs of rain, I still decided to take the tarp down. Not that it REALLY mattered? But, I did'nt want to have to pack it away wet again in the event the weather changed overnight. Plus we'd be one step closer to being packed up in the morning. Someone who I planned on not joining us in our travels tomorrow was Mr. Beam. We sat and looked out across Kekekabic reminiscing about what a absolutely fantastic time we'd spent here. With the exception of it raining when we first got here? We couldn't have hoped for better weather. Awesome campsite, good fishing, very friendly wildlife..........it was a few days of suspended animation in a state of bliss. We lingered by the campfire a little longer this evening. Wishing it would never end.
Kekekabic Lake