Like I said, it was a little cool in the tent when we finally decided to get up. I, again, brought life back to the few remaining glowing coals in the woods stove while assembling my camp stove. With the hot water on for coffee, I began mixing the pancake batter while my other tent mates gathers enough decent wood to warm the tent long enough for breakfast and breakfast dishes. Reese, Cory, and Phil were all up before our tent was and were out drilling holes in the ice in hopes of catching some trout. The sun was shining and it looked to be a perfect day, and it would have been...

While gearing up his line for lake trout, Reese had pulled an airplane jig from his tackle box, set it down on his right side next to the hole in the ice, turned to his left to set the tackle box down, then turned back to the right to grab the jig and begin tying it to his line. When he turned to grab the jig, it was gone, only to be replaced by the screams of Cory's dog, Bayla, behind him. See Bayla, thought the jig was a toy, so she picked it up, and ran. Bayla vigorously tried to shake the jig from her mouth, but that only made things worse. I ran out of the tent to see what was going on just in time to catch Bayla running by me. I won't go into too much detail here because it was not a pleasant experience, but here is a summary. Bayla had gotten 3 of the 4 treble hooks on the jog caught in her upper lip on one side of her mouth. It took two guys, Reese and Cory, to hold her down while I attempted to cut treble hooks from the mouth of a flailing dog with a leatherman. Nothing against the Leatherman company, because I love their multi-tools, but THIS was not the intended purpose for the little wire cutter at the base of the needle nose pliers. I was able to first cut the unhooked treble from the jig and then went to work on what else I could. Only one of the larger hooks was all of the way through her lip. I was able to cut that one out. 3 of the other hooks were into her lip but not all of the way through... but in far enough so that the barb was caught... we all know what that means. Cory attempted one time to push the barb through, the cries of the dog were unbearable. Surely the other group on the lake thought we were killing that dog. We gave up on pushing the hooks through and cut of the parts of the treble that weren't embedded with the idea that without them, no more hooks could get caught in her lip (or paw). It was a tough half hour for all of us (mostly for Bayla). Cory immediately packed up his gear and walked Bayla back to the truck at Hungry Jack. From there he made the jaunt to Duluth to the emergency vet, a long haul on a good day, but with a dog in pain, I'm sure it was horrible.

After seeing Cory and Bayla off, the rest of up set up to fish and relax for the rest of the day. Phil left shortly after because he had to be back to work in Ely the next day. Despite how the day started out, it was a perfect March day, Warm and Sunny. We were out on the lake ice fishing in our t-shirts and jeans. Reese and the girls when for a short cross country ski trip down Rose Lake. Brett and I stayed and fished while sipping on what was left of our growlers from Fitger's. Later we hiked up to the Rose Lake overlook from the trail at the top of the portage. That was easily the highlight of my trip. As a 27 year old guy that grew up in the cities with a very non-outdoorsy family I am lucky to have done around a dozen boundary waters trips, 2 now in the winter, as well as paddled in Maine and Wisconsin, and that view is going to be tough to beat!

Upon returning to camp the clouds rolled in. I quickly made supper, vegetable soup and falafels (Tina is a vegetarian, so for this trip, we are all vegetarians). While I cooked, Brett continued to fish, Reese gathered us some nice dry firewood and split it up, and the girls munched on snickers bars. Dinner was great, our bellies were full, and the blanket of clouds that came in brought a bit of a breeze and colder temps. We retired to the tent for cribbage and conversation. This off course was accompanied by wine and later by jiffy pop over the wood stove and deep fried cheese curds! Sleep again came early but with dry wood and an extra guy sleeping on the floor (Cory brought the tent out with him when he had to leave) we were able to keep the tent warm for the night. Pics from day 2:

Sorry, these are out of order but I think you get the idea that it was a really nice day!