WE got up early with plans to portage over to East Pike Lake. We were up by 6:30 (early for the girls), ate some breakfast, loaded the canoe with PLENTY of stuff to keep the girls occupied. Donny and my dad had left earlier to fish John a while until we got there. Repeat of yesterday, lots of wind even as early as it was. It took us over an hour and a half to paddle to the portage into East Pike. I strapped everything into the canoe and hoisted it onto my shoulders. “this could be fun!”,lol. Everything was balance pretty good, the girls went off with grandpa to look for berries along the way. I stopped 2 times to rest and made it to East Pike. They had talked how long the portage was, but I found it to be a pretty easy portage. Even though East Pike ran in a different direction than John, the wind was really ripping straight at us AGAIN! I loaded the canoe a lot better and added some rocks to the front, by the girls, along with their large, heavy, drink and snack filled soft sided cooler, lol. We were able to actually steer the thing today even though the wind was bad. WE made it to the other side and started to fish. Alex decided since she had a couple snacks already that she was ready for a nap. Faith was ready to fish and it did not take long to start catching some smallies. We fished for most of 5 hours and caught over 50 fish. WE kept 5 and I cut them up on shore to add to our cooler of ice. The girls went off with the guts and found an out of the way place to bury them away from any camps and not near the portage trail. I loaded the canoe back up and walked back to John. We then realized the wind had stayed where it was and we could drift back to Little John. We would drift while trolling, catch a fish, drop anchor and fish, etc. We caught another 25-30 perch, though most were small, but we had enough for another fish fry. The girls spent ALL DAY in the canoe, about 11 hours counting the portages. I could not have asked for more, they did great. They even wanted to go fish and explore under the bridge after we ate and we caught another smallie there. East Pike Lake, Little John Lake, John Lake