Monday, June 21, 2010 Seagull-Alpine We woke up at about 5:30 very excited and eager to get on the road. We ate breakfast loaded up the gear and canoe and headed out. We had a 4-5 hour drive up there from our home in Wisconsin. We stopped at the Gunflint Ranger Station in Grand Marais to pick up our permit just before 10. We watched the video and took the short quiz and headed out to the bait shop to pick up leeches. We were unsure of how many leeches to get so we decided a half pound should work. (I'm still not sure how many dozen are supposed to be in a pound or a half pound but I think we got shorted. We paid for a half pound but only got 40 leeches at the max so I don't know if that's right or not.) But anyways we then headed out to Holiday to get our fishing licenses and Dairy Queen to get lunch and soon we were headed up the Gunflint with growing enthusiasm. We got to the Seagull landing at about 11:30 and were all packed up and paddling out at noon. The weather was about 80 degrees and sunny with some light wind. We had a headwind for the first 3 miles but nothing too tough. It seemed like forever to get all the way across Seagull but at last we reached the portage to Alpine. I had never seen so many groups and people in one day in the bw before. We had to have seen around a dozen groups at campsites or the portages. We quickly covered the 105 rod portage as we were fresh and ready to go. (our canoe is a very old alumacraft spray painted camo for duck hunting. It has to weigh atleast 70-80 pounds! We nicknamed it Sasquatch) We paddled to the Southern most campsite on Alpine and arrived a little before 3. I quickly sank our leeches to the bottom of the lake to stay cool. We set up camp quick and relaxed a bit for awhile. At 6 we made supper of chicken and rice and then went out fishing along shore towards the walleye hole near the rapids. We caught 3 smallmouths and 4 walleyes in about 2 hours of fishing. I also caught a 30+ inch northern as well. We headed back to camp at dark and had some orange tea and went to bed. Lakes traveled: Seagull, Alpine