Day 4: Tuesday, September 25th

I got up fairly early to a jaw-dropping scene: the cold night, lack of wind, and warmer than the air water temps created a thick low fog bank over the lake. I grabbed my camera to catch Brett fishing from shore.

It was so calm and beautiful, you didn’t even want to speak as we watched the sun slowly burn it off.

The others woke and we drank our coffee with this scene reflecting nature’s splendor.

As the sun punched through, a deep blue sky was slowly being revealed.

I was reminded on that gorgeous morning that even though the fishing wasn’t exactly what we had been hoping for so far, we were so lucky to be in this stunning corner of the world, witnessing it at its finest. 
We switched canoe parners to fish today, and I was matched with my oldest friend in the world, Brian. As we paddled out, I pointed out to him that water temps were two degrees colder in Burntside than the larger Jean. Could these lakes be in different stages relative to fishing, especially with regards to lakers? We knew the lakers would spawn at some point soon, but since this was our first trip into the park at this time of year, we weren’t sure what that would mean.

We worked our way up into the northeastern part of the lake, but again could only scratch up a few decent-sized smallies and pike in the 25 inch range.

Fishing was slow, and the day wore on, we were at least able to enjoy some nice conversation that back home we never both seem to have enough time for. There are a lot worse things than spending quality time with a buddy on a bright fall day in Quetico.

We hit a promising point on the eastern shore, and Brian tossed his jig up near the rocks where the gathering west wind was bringing some wave activity in. He got a nice strike…could it be a walleye? The depth finder showed that were in only 14 feet of water, so imagine our surprise when a nice laker was on the end.

Two casts later, he had another one on, and we were able to pick up a couple more of eater size. We kept the first one for dinner, as we realized that they were in early to spawn here in Burntside, where just one lake over, I had caught mine in 60’ of water. Those two degrees of water temp did the trick. We couldn’t get any more takers, so we explored some emergent structure. No more trout, but a 19” smallie accepted my offering.

We cleaned the trout and paddled back towards camp, where we were relieved to see that Pete and Steve and found some nice walleyes. They caught them trolling crankbaits over deep holes, far from shore. The ‘eyes must just dig down deep this type of year as turnover approaches and they put on the pre-ice feedbag. 
Finally, we’d get our fish fry tonight! The trout was prepped for baking in foil on the grill, and I got down to the business of frying up the walleyes, and it was as good as we remembered. Those fillets and the trout did not last long in our camp, and we enjoyed them with fried potatoes which I had dehydrated before the trip.

We put a healthy dent in the whiskey supply that night, which was again great for stargazing. The moon was approaching full pretty quickly. Just a great day in the park.