Monday, June 25, 2012

When the eastern sky began to lighten I woke up. With enough visibility to see across the bay on a perfectly still morning, I slipped down to the boat landing and launched the canoe for a few hours of solo fishing.

I knew that the summer sun rose earlier in these northern latitudes than back home, but I was still surprised when I checked my watch and realized that I’d started fishing around 4:30 a.m. In solo mode the canoe sat very high in the bow (a polite way of saying that my large posterior was weighing down the stern) and she wanted to spin with the slightest wisp of wind. Trolling original Rapalas along the shoreline kept me busy with bass and a few northerns until I saw a couple of fish break the surface in the middle of the bay. There were a few mayflies floating on top, probably leftovers from a fair hatch which came off the previous afternoon, so maybe the fish were taking them.

By casting at the breaking fish I was able to take a couple of nice bass in the 19 inch class, both of which struck a foot or two beneath the surface in 30 feet of water nearly 100 yards from the nearest shoreline. Eventually I saw signs of life in our campsite so I returned to find Elissa already had our breakfast in process.

Pancakes laced with fresh-picked wild blueberries sharing a skillet with link sausage. If Elissa kept on producing meals like our first dinner and breakfast I’d gain weight on our supposed wilderness trip! Feeling guilty about enjoying my fishing while Elissa had slaved over breakfast, I encouraged her to make a few casts from shore, where she promptly caught a nice bass.

We broke camp (including BOTH tents), loaded the canoe and headed back to Cache Bay. When we reached the step-over non-portage that we’d crossed the prior day something looked a bit different: a beaver had apparently been busy overnight trying to build a dam there because there were at least a half dozen fresh-cut branches laced across the gap, most of which still had greenery on them, and none of which had been present the afternoon prior. If beavers had access to Google Earth Imagery this one would have known that it didn’t make sense for him to build a dam on this isthmus, but northwoods beavers must not be online yet.

Our plan was to do the Silver Falls portage, then head north and find a campsite in the Boundary Point area. With a few miles to cover we left the fishing gear stowed and proceeded directly to Silver Falls. Cache Bay was mirror-calm on a glorious day that lent itself to canoe travel.

We’d been told by our outfitter that Silver Falls was flowing really hard and that extra care was needed on both ends of the torrent, and when we landed we could hear from the roar and see from the mists billowing out of the chasm that the falls really were much wilder than we’d seen last year. We shouldered the gear and started the overland grind, eager to get the portage behind us.

At the northern landing we met two guys who were traveling the other direction. They said that they’d been in the Falls Chain area for two weeks, had “gambled on the weather and rolled double boxcars” and that their fishing had been fair at best with some bass but not much in the way of walleyes. Not the most encouraging report, but we weren’t dissuaded. Immediately after launching we had a briefly tense moment when the strong current pulled us nearer to a starboard side rock bluff than I’d expected, but by digging in and paddling hard we cleared it and zoomed uneventfully through the sled ride that was created by the huge wash of water into the outflow of the falls and through the narrows into Saganagons Lake proper.

We paddled to an island site near the mouth of the stream that flows out of Blackstone Lake, a favorite of ours on which we’d spent two nights last year, and lugged our kit up the steep hill to establish our camp on a site which faced the setting sun from above a rock palisade.

The camp chair in the background was at the site when we arrived, tied in place between two trees with parachute cord. A broken chair leg had been splinted with a stick, so even though it was serviceable the chair was no longer collapsible, and the prior owners probably figured it wasn’t worth hauling out. With camp set up (including TWO tents) we ate lunch, and then our next chore was dinner. The menu for our second evening’s meal featured fish stew and we possessed no fish, so early afternoon we set out to stock the larder. The fishing wasn’t great, in fact it was some of the slowest of our entire trip, but we did catch enough bass to allow us to put a couple of 13 inchers on the stringer. Fortunately the two small fish would suffice for our stew, and after a stop for fish cleaning and firewood gathering we retreated to camp to put together the meal. A couple of observations: first, the two bass we’d eaten last night and the two that we filleted for tonight were all females that were full of hydrated roe and looked nearly ready to spawn. Second, the bass weren’t aggressive about hitting, especially during mid day. As we worked shorelines we’d sometimes see bass among the rocks that were completely disinterested in our offerings. Another example of this came after we returned to camp when I spotted a bass hanging in three feet of water off the tip of a rocky point at the site. I grabbed a rod from the canoe and rock- hopped near enough the fish to be able to make short tosses at it with a twister-tail jig and watch his (her?) reaction to the lure. The fish finally did take the lure, but it took at least 8 or 10 casts to annoy it into a strike. I’ve never fished pre-spawn smallmouth before, so maybe this is how they usually act before they go on the beds?

We enjoyed our fish stew and after dinner we fished a nearby shoreline for a couple of hours, alternating between trolling and shoreline casting during the last of the dwindling daylight. Fishing was slow, but I did catch our trip’s first walleye, a modest 17 incher, just before sunset, and we tallied a few bass and a northern or two.

The walleye was taken while trolling over this bottom:

Notice that the late day surface water temperature was 71 degrees, which when coupled with the clear, bright sky might also help explain our lack of midday success. With nightfall approaching we made tracks for the camp, where Elissa was able to cap her day with campfire s’mores before the mosquitos drove us out from under the bright moon and into the safety of our tent(S).