Saturday, July 31-August 1st 2010 Day 7-8: On to Pickerel and Long Island.

We tried to get an early start, but we got out about 8 am. There were a couple rangers and a 17 yr old teenage girls cleaning crew of junior rangers who were going around sprucing up campsites who had also stayed on Twin that night. We had made one trip down the portage when they came through and were off by the time I got back with my second load. The park superintendent, unbeknownst to us, gave a little flick of his hand wave as he passed us while carrying a canoe. This portage was a little muddy but not nearly as bad as the one from Olifaunt into Sturgeon. But at the take out into Dore, a beaver has built a dam which has kept the area a lot wetter and muddier than usual.

We made it through pretty easy and pushed on through Dore. We had a little traffic jam at the next portage and had to fish and wait for the two groups ahead of us to push through. We had lots of little bass here, whereas last year it was mostly 3-4 pounders here. This next portage seemed like a piece of cake compared to the others we had been through, and we knocked it out easily. Except someone forgot their father’,s fishing pole at the beginning and he had to go back and retrieve it. Pine Portage Bay’s fishing was as good as it was in the past, and we got into smallmouth on most casts. We debated on doing the next really small portage or paddling around. We opted to paddle around since the weather was so nice. As we were leaving the bay and entering the narrow area that heads to Emerald, we met two guys from Ohio who remembered seeing us by the unique pattern of one of our canoes, kind of a tiger stripe attempt at prairie camouflage. We worked our way down catching fish most of the way to Emerald. Again, nothing hot and heavy but enough to keep us interested. We finally hit our destination on the end of Long Island: a very nice open site with many good tree spots for hammocks. Not that we really had one on this trip, but we improvised with a tarp. It was still early after we set up camp, so after some swimming, the canoes headed out in search of fish. I asked for pike, but they come back with bass. So as they were getting those ready, I said I’d be back with pike. I headed around the corner with the Johnson silver minnow and hit the first reed bed I come to. A nice 25 incher hit it on the surface three times before I got it. I brought it boatside thinking how great I was to get an eater on the first cast. I lean over to get it, and it shakes the hook. Ahhhhhhh. I fish the rest of the weedy bay with only a few more hammer handles. I was about to pull out when I try these two small islands at the mouth of the bay. One was about 6 ft long and the other about 25 ft. I started casting the silver minnow, and it got crushed by something big. The pike took me under the boat and it was gone. I fished this area a little while longer and got a couple more bass, and then I finally land a big pike, too big I think.. I net it and drag it back in the net. My daughter takes a picture of it doubled up in the net, but when I take it out to measure it, no picture. I think it is in the slot, but the hungry eyes of the tape holder says its 35 ½. I opt to release it for another day amid the cries of, “We need it, don’t let it go!” We end up with plenty of bass for the pan that night and the pike lives on. The next morning we were back in search of the big pike, and this time Noah hooks into one by the same islands. I am a little too slow on the net and without a leader, his Little Cleo is gone as well as the pike. Who gave him that advice not to use a leader? Anyway, that morning starts out well and we catch a lot more bass around the other islands in the next hour until we say we are going to go back and get the rest of the crew. Of course, once we do this, the fishing is not as good with “three people” in a canoe. Now Long Island had bees too, but not near the fire or the tents, but just where someone happened to walk this time. Two of us end up getting stung, my daughter on her leg and Frank on his ear and finger.