Sunday we woke up to the pitter patter of rain showers on the tent fly. This would be the only day that it rained the entire trip. The rain didn’t last long, but along with it came a nasty and colder north wind. Kawnipi was angry. Not really, really angry, but none the less angry.

Dave_B and I were a little heavier than the other groups for a reason. We brought good food, and part of that good food was good breakfasts. We decided to have one of our two pancake breakfasts. There is nothing like pancakes in the Boundary Waters. It doesn’t matter if they are burned to a crisp, doughy and milky in the middle, thin like crepes, or thick like a slice of bread……..they all taste good. These were no different. Along with the pancakes, we also brought in some freeze dried eggs. While they were not bad, they certainly were not very good either. They didn’t turn out as good as expected, but I think we cooked them a little too long, and they tasted a little rubbery.

Chms and SmallieSaver were already on the water. They were headed to the large bay behind our campsite so I knew they’d be leaving early. Kristen_E and GadgetMan were also already gone. They had left nearly 30 minutes earlier. Dave_B and I still planned to hit some spots in and around Rose Island.

Once on the water, Dave_B and I realized that our initial plan to hit the Rose Island area was not going to work. The wind simply was not going to cooperate. It was blowing quite hard by now, and some of the rogue waves were probably 2 ft high. I’ve been in worse, but this was bad and was probably not going to get any better.

We saw GadgetMan and Kristen_E and it was obvious that they were not going to make it to the Cache River area either. They were struggling with the wilderness canoe they were using, and Cooper didn’t make it any easier. He is a good dog, but he was still overly excited about being in new surroundings, and he really wanted to explore. A fidgety dog in a canoe, in the middle of serious wind and waves is not a good thing. He nearly dumped them once or twice, but all in all everything turned out OK.

Dave_ B and I were also not having an easy time of it…….about 1/3 the way up our chosen route to the top of Rose Island, Dave_B and I decided that we should punt and fish somewhere else. Since we were already nearly half way across the lake, we decided to continue on our way and fish behind Rose Island where the wind was not nearly as bad.

Dave_B and I were still on the fish deep, fish slow kick and thought we’d stick and catch some larger smallies by fishing for larger, summer pattern fish. I still wonder and think about this decision. Not that it was wrong, but we never really did find or catch those bigger, deep water fish. Granted every smallie that came out of 20 or 30ft of water was a 3lb or larger smallie, we really never did find enough numbers to justify that plan.

While fishing for smallies that way, we did manage to catch very good numbers of walleye. Even though Dave_B and I are primarily smallie fisherman, every time we found somewhere that looked like a decent walleye spot, we fished for walleye. This turned out to be a great plan, and we ended up catching our 4 walleye limit by 1 or 2 pm. We also managed to stick a few smallies, and northern pike but not in the quality or quantity I was accustomed to based on my other fall trips.

Dave and I fished for a couple more hours and then headed back to camp. On the way back we passed a great reef what would certainly hold walleye…we took note of this area. We didn’t’ spend a whole lot of time checking it out though because the wind and waves were getting to be crazy scary. Behind Rose Island, we could tell that it was bad but we could not tell how bad. Once we were out in it, we immediately realized that this was going to take lots of concentration and paddling to get back to our campsite.

We ended up having to quarter into the wind for nearly ½ a mile above our campsite. Once we visually calculated where we could make the turn and float with the wind, we made a very coordinated turn between 3 ft swells. These waves were not the biggest waves I’ve paddled, but they were tricky. They were not all coming the same direction and the rogue waves would crash and flop over the side of the gunnels. Once we were turned with the wind, and the waves started pushing us, it was all I could do to keep the canoe tracking without turning sideways with the swells. Between the swells, the waves would try to flop over the side gunnels. This was getting scary.

Once we finally made it to camp, we started taking about dinner and dinner plans. Fish was on the agenda, but No ONE brought fish back for dinner…No ONE except for Dave_B and me. Four walleye would not be enough though.

By this time, the wind and waves were calming down a little. Dave_B and I both thought about the walleye spot we saw while coming back to camp. We both figured we could catch a couple walleye there, so we headed back out. I prepped and tied the drift sock to the very back of the canoe, and then setup the fish finder. The water 100 ft off the reef was 95 ft deep. Wow, I knew the water was deep here but I didn’t think it was that deep. As we came up the reef, I found and marked fish and baitfish in 35 ft of water. Dave_B and I pulled back off the spot, and lowered the drift sock. We were both armed with big hammer 4 inch swim baits, and 3/8 oz heads. Once we hit the magic spot we immediately started getting bit. I managed to hookup first with a very quality sized eater walleye. After that, Dave_B also hooked up with another nice eater sized walleye. Again, we pulled up on a spot and targeted walleye and managed to put eater sized walleye in the boat.

Smallie Saver and Chms caught really decent smallie all day long in their chosen bay, tucked in out of the wind which howled all day on the main lake. On one bank, they hooked and landed over 15 fish, all over 2 lbs., while never moving the boat. A real spring-like bite in September! The overcast skies and wind swept banks really turned on the smallies in this bay. Several pike, some up to 35 inches, were also caught in the back coves and immediately released.

We headed back to camp, where Dave_B and SmallieSaver cleaned the fish while Chms and I prepared the fire and sides for dinner.

Once the fish were all cleaned, we decided to prepare and cook the fish multiple ways. We fried 1/3 of it, blackened 1/3 of it using Bayou Blast and grilled 1/3 of it using pesto dressing that Kristen_E brought. Along with dinner, we had stove top stuffing and four cheese instant potatoes.

If that wasn’t enough, I also baked a blueberry cheesecake mix using my new Omnia oven. Did I mention that we ate some really good food on this trip?

After dinner, some of the group smoked cigars and skinned some more platys. Spice rum and cocoa or apple cider is the BOMB.