Thursday, June 14, 2012

Thursday morning started out with ominous distant rumbles of thunder. We took the canoes out for a little fishing around the island with moderate success, then quickly darted back to camp when we saw a white cloud of rainfall quickly approaching from the west side of the bay. After waiting for a few hours in our tents, the rain died down to a trickle, and we set out in soggy and chilly conditions through the creek in North Bay and up into the S-chain.

Right before we portaged out of South into West Lake, I caught what would be the biggest smallmouth of the trip on a pearl zulu. (Thanks QueticoMike!) We also quickly learned the value of steel leaders as the pike's sharp teeth clipped our lines numerous times. We paddled north into Shade (a beautiful lake) and into Noon, encountering a very large boy scout troupe and several other paddlers going the opposite way. We spent a frustrating 45 minutes looking for the portage from Noon into Summer...we finally found it after bushwacking along the bank for a while.

We paddled Summer, portaged into Sultry, and then portaged into Silence as a nasty drizzle began to move in. The mosquitos joined us in the swampy portage, which was the longest of the trip yet (we were double-portaging due to the heavy canoes), and with the weather beginning to turn against us again and the previous portage frustration, a couple of our guys were beginning to get a little raw. The drizzle turned into a steady downpour as we paddled northward on Silence, and the wind picked up furiously, pushing us to the lake's largest island where we set up camp. Fortunately we had an eagle scout and two AT thru- hikers in our group who were able to get a sustainable fire going in spite of the steady downpour. Two of our group turned in early and slept 13+ hours to recuperate from the grueling day. Fishing wasn't great around the island (weather perhaps?) although we did catch a couple of smallies.

This guy had just gotten done burying his eggs and wasn't too happy to see us.