Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Omega Lake, Winchell Lake
Woke up at 8:00am with something on my mind. During the night, I had thought of something that would bother me the rest of the trip. Before I left for the Boundary Waters, I had set up some training at work for a new piece of equipment. The only problem was that I forgot let anybody at work know when the training was going to take place, or so I thought. The people coming in to do the training had the schedule, but that was it. The training was scheduled to take place the Monday I was coming back to work from this BW vacation. Well, long story short, this bothered me the rest of the trip. It didn't ruin it, but it was always in the back of my mind weighing on me. I am normally not the type of person that worries about work. At work, I make sure I get everything taken care of and organized, but when I go home I leave work at work and don't think about work again until the next day when I go back. Anyway, come to find out I HAD sent out the training schedule and there was really nothing to worry about.
My plan for this day of the trip was to go to Winchell Lake and repeat what I had tried the previous day, fish for lake trout. The day went pretty much like it did the previous day. Me paddling my a$$ off in the wind, getting frusterated and killing myself physically. I did hike up to the top of the hills on the south side of the lake. It was dark and overcast, but it was still a nice view. I even brought my cell phone (I am not a cell phone person, and normally can't stand them) to see if I could get a call out to work and let them know about the training. I actually had 2-3 bars of service. However this was due to that fact that I was so high up the powerful towers could get their signal to me, but there was no way a little cell phone could punch back out to the towers. At least that was my theory. I came back down the hills and checked out the small falls that I believe empty out of Tremble Lake and into Winchell. Small falls, but neat to check out. I headed back out onto the windy lake and made my way back to Omega. I did get a 27" northern and cooked 'em up for supper when I got back to camp. Mmmm, fresh fish in the BW...good eating!!! Hit the tent for a late day nap. Got up cleaned up camp and got ready for the next day. Tomorrow I will be heading back closer to the entry point for my final night.
Heard some good news from my weather radio just as I was going to bed. The wind direction was flipping 180 deg and I will be paddling into the wind on my way towards the EP tomorrow. The whole time I was paddling in on the first day, I kept thinking to myself, "it will be nice on the way out, this head wind I am paddling into will be a tail wind!" Well, no such luck. Drifted off to sleep exhuasted and sore.
LESSON THE DAY: Same as yesterday! If it is windy, don't fight nature all day and get frustrated trying to fish... adapt and do something else. This is the Bounday Waters, you don't have to follow your original plan.