The weather cleared during the night as it was supposed to. Everything was looking good for a few nice weather days, as I was hoping. I slept well, and I was up at 5:00, getting all done to prepare for my tow and taking my medications. Missy was going early to work at the border check station, so she drove me. I got towed at 6:30 am and was done portaging (I quadruple portage) by a little after 7:15. I started paddling and immediately saw 3 canoes to my left fishing Splash. I struck up a conversation with the first canoe with 2 fishermen, and they were very nice to me with info. The campsite on Splash was taken until that afternoon, so I decided to paddle up into Ensign and find another campsite, knowing that they would leave their campsite at 3:00 if I needed to come back for that campsite. As I was paddling up the small narrows before the tiny portage/paddle into Ensign, I saw a moose jump into the narrows, swim across for a few seconds, and get out quickly, scampering into the woods! I had never seen a moose on Ensign or Splash before in ~ a dozen trips, so I felt very lucky. The water was high, so I paddled hard and made it through those tiny rapids without getting out. The first campsite right near that 5 rod portage/paddle was open, so I took it. I planned to fish in Splash that day, so I felt like that site was fine. I wanted to fish the northwest bay of Ensign on Day 2, so I could get there easily from that site, or I might move over to the island site if it was open the next day. I had caught an 18 pound pike a few years ago over there, as well as a big smallmouth and a lunker largemouth, so I really like that bay. Many people go to the east end for walleye, but I stay on the west end.
I paddled into that rocky camp site and spent the next few hours setting up camp. I started with getting my 12 x 12 tarp tied up, my tent up, and then walked well back into some areas with downed birch to cut firewood for a campfire that night. I was lucky to find some good wood down for cutting, so I gave my saw a good workout and had more than I needed for a few days. It makes me feel good to leave a pile for the next campers, so I felt good about that. This site I've used on my last day a number of times, and it is usually hard to find some good firewood. I ate some gorp, an orange, and a granola bar and was ready to gear my canoe for a short fishing trip back into Splash for the afternoon.
I took some rapalas, rattletraps, a couple rods, some snacks, a water bottle, a water bag filled with ~ 30 pounds of water to help trim my canoe, and my little tackle box with stringer and fish-cleaning tools and bags. I like to clean fish before returning to camp so I can put the remains far away from my camp site. I paddled down past the narrows and began fishing, immediately catching some small pike. During the next couple hours I caught 7 pike, 2 smallmouth, and 1 largemouth. I kept 4 eater sized and cleaned them on a rock before returning to camp. Walked the remains away from the water and dropped them. Got back to camp by ~2:30 and lit up the cooking stove for a fish fry. I got a recipe for fish batter off this website a couple years ago and used it. I feasted on fish, not wasting any of those fillets! I sat there and read a little, and dozed off for ~ an hour.