Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Time away from the real world.
by nofish

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 08/16/2012
Entry & Exit Point: Skipper and Portage Lakes (EP 49)
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 2
Day 3 of 5
Friday, August 17, 2012

Day 2 started early for me and the dog. We were up by 6:30 and fished around the campsite for awhile before my wife got up. Caught a few small pike and missed several other bites but that’s about it. Breakfast was eggs and potatoes.


The decision of the morning was whether to base camp it on Skipper for the rest of our trip or pack up and head west. My wife liked the site and liked having a lake to ourselves so she wanted to stay put. I really wanted to make it to Banadad on this trip but I didn’t argue with her decision. I hadn't mentioned it to her by this point but my shoulder tendonitis had been really hurting since we first put in the day before and I had been gritting my teeth the entire way on the previous days travel. I wasn’t going to let it stop the trip but I also wasn’t going to force the issue. So instead of moving camp we opted for am easy and slow day trip to Rush Lake instead.

The wind had died down a lot and was probably only 10-15 mph out of the west. We made short work of the paddle on skipper and started navigating the creek that led to Little Rush. It was a short portage but it required walking the canoe through the creek. Not hard but the footing was tricky. Once through the creek we paddled the shoreline of Little Rush checking out the burn area as we cruised by. The portage to Rush was a muddy start but not bad. Just a shrot up and down portage with good views and lots of raspberries bushes. Unfortunately we were a little late and only found a few handfuls left.

We stopped at the first campsite on the north shoreline for lunch. Seemed to be a nice site with a huge pine offering shelter in the middle of the site. We fished and relaxed at the site for awhile. Only caught 2 small pike. After exploring Rush a little more we headed back to Skipper making it back to camp around 4pm. Took a little nap to rest up for dinner. Tonight's dinner was a Bear Creek pasta dinner, not too bad at all. Not exactly home cooking but pretty good for a just add water meal. Spent the rest of the night fishing and watching the sunset.