We awake about 8am, which is later than I hoped. It takes us almost 2 hours to break camp, eat breakfast and get moving. I'm confident that we'll develop more efficient ways to break down camp and get started as the trip progresses. As we paddle across Ensign, I'm mentally preparing myself for the 55 and 105 rod portages that await us. The 55 rodder into Ashigan goes fairly smooth. I'd heard Ashigan was a decent smallie lake and was very tempted to throw out a couple casts, but with the wind in our faces I decide against it and resolve to fish all evening for lakers on Ima. The dreaded 105 is just up ahead. This portage was a hassle!! Mostly uphill, ankle deep mud, sharp rocks and fallen trees. We try and single portage the whole thing in one trip, but end up dropping a couple packs halfway through.

We stop at Cattyman Falls for some exploration, pictures and a quick lunch. A couple guys with their son/nephew ask if we might have a couple leeches they could use for fishing, so I load about 2 dozen in a bag and wish them good luck...we must remember to appease the fish gods. There's still a good 10- 15mph wind in our faces coming out of the east, which seems a little strange, but I know I'll be thankful to have it at my back tomorrow.

The channel on Jordan leading up Ima is absolutely gorgeous and we take our sweet time going up it. After an easy 5 rodder we're at Ima Lake. Just off to the right of the portage is a filleted walleye carcass sitting on a rock. The thing was HUGE! Easily 8-10lbs when alive. While I'm a bit disgusted that someone would leave the fish there to rot, at the same time I'm hoping it's a sign from the fish gods telling me that there are big ones in Ima waiting to be caught. After briefly getting lost (this is where I learn how handy having a compass is) we settle on the back end of an island on the far side of Ima, after seeing that almost all sites had been taken. I would rate this one 2.5 out of 5. Nothing special. As we start to pull our canoes out of the water, I glance across the lake, and a look of dismiss crosses my face. Big, dark rain clouds approaching. I estimate that we don't have more than an hour before it hits us, so we throw up the tent, filter some water and throw all the gear in the tent. Dark clouds are now above us but no rain yet, so we take a couple of casts from shore. It was here we notice the air is thick with mayflies, there must have been a huge hatch close by because there are thousands of them, and about 10 ft from shore you can see fish fins exit and return into the water as they feast on the falling flies. We would later come to find that this hatch would dictate the outcome of fishing for the rest of the trip. After about 5 or 6 casts the rain starts to hit pretty hard, so we bee lined for the tent and there we would remain for the rest of the night. So much for laker fishing on Ima. But what fishing time was lost was made up with a nice steak and potato dinner in the tent cooked on our camp stove, and reciting endless movie quotes till we couldn't laugh any more. We fall asleep to thunder and rain.