Wednesday, June 12, 2013 In the morning,the skies were dreary. We were towed to the Lac LaCroix ranger station to get our paperwork:lastyear Zups got all permits. That added about 3 hours to our ultimate arrival at the Black Robe portage, but eventually we got there. It was awkward at the the entry point because of several motor boats tied up at the best landing zone, but with my first wet foot dismount we managed to unload the boat, and we were on our way. The Black robe portage was pretty flat and easy, and we started paddling down McAree on what became perfect sunny morning. We passed by some guys fishing in a motorboat off a point. Tim, our new buddy,paddled his solo canoe faster than Andrew and I paddled our tandem 18.5 Souris river-we both had our theories as to why that was happening (which were mutually exclusive) but pretty soon he was out of sight. Our other new buddy Mike, started behind us and was triple portaging, but he wound up passing us later in the day.Hmmm. We got to the first portage into Pond Lake. We were told we might be able to get through the channel, but that looked pretty dicey so we hoofed it through the woods. On Pond Lake, we followed the northeast shoreline for awhile looking for the portage. I pulled out my GPS after 15 minutes to identify that we went right by it (about 14 minutes ago). As we backtracked, we found Mike had caught up to us in his solo and was pointing to the portage. Tim was already getting ready to make his second pass through the Gratton Death March, Goat Hill, or Ass kicker portage ahead of us- the various names we heard of. I learned a few things on that portage. First, my son is a beast on the trail. We packed for convenience and luxury not for weight, and he carried our 80 pounder on back and the 40 pounder in front, scampering up the trail like he was the easter bunny. I on the other hand, I fell off my exercise routine (about 2 years ago), have bad knees, subotimal balance, and have evolved into a portaging lightweight slug. Andrew didnt want to carry the canoe. I decided I should probably carry something so I aquiesed.The canoe only weighed about 45 pounds. At least thats what it was when I first hoisted it. After I got to the top of the first hill, I decided there was a cosmic cataclysm that affected gravity-the canoe now weighed 140 pounds. I put it down for awhile, and started what became my portaging routine for the trip. Walk 10 yards, rest, then 9 yards, bigger rest, then rest in between rest periods. The latter approach salvaged my energy, but was inefficient as far as propelling the canoe up the trail. My strategy worked from my standpoint though. Eventually, my son came walking back after hauling his sherpa like load. His facial impression told me he was curious why we could still see the lake we were coming from after my 35 minute portaging effort. But, he decided to "help" me the rest of the way. I did have to lug a rather heavy water bottle, but made it. Eventually, we were on the shores of Gratton or little Gratton or Unnmamed lake (depending on the mapsource), gazing over a mucky swamp, trying to figure out how to get the canoe out into the lake. I sacrificed my lower extremities to the muck, and ultimetely we were paddling down what we will call Gratton. My original plan was to keep the fishing poles in the rod case until we reached our destination at Darky lake. Andrew however had other plans. We stopped at an island for lunch, and within 20 milliseconds, he had his pole out with a popper on. Within 1 minute, he had the first fish of the trip-a small largemouth bass. I ate lunch as I watched him scamper around the island, getting a hit every other cast. After I finished lunch, I confiscated his pole and on the first cast caught my first largemouth, a nice 18 incher. The action was non stop, but our anticipated campsite was 2 lakes away, so we loaded the canoe and moved on. I let Andrew cast as we paddled to the Wicksteed Portage. He caught 5 more bass, including one 19 incher. What an incredible spot. We portaged into Wicksteed over a pretty nice trail. Andrew decided to troll around the first major northeast point we came too. Since I was such a load on the portage trails, I let him and after 5 minutes, he hooked a heavy northern which taught Andrew why we use wire leaders when trolling for Northerns. After that, the wind kicked up, and it was frantic paddle to the kevlar, and island hopping to get out of the wind. This time, I kept close track of my GPS and with my quetico map chip, we paddled directly to the next portage to Darky. When we got to Darky, the wind died down, and it was a nice sunny afternoon. We paddled toward the first island-it was occupied by Mike our solo buddy. We exchange greetings, and moved on but not before seeing a giant smallmouth right in front of his camp. We saw him rigging up a pole as we paddled down the lake. We then made a bee line for the 5 star camp Stu Osthoff marked on our map-that some people refer to the Darky Hilton. We were pretty happy to see it was open. A couple hours later, we gazed out at 1 tent, 2 camp chairs, 1 3 man tent, my sleeping hammock, our day hammock, and our 10 by 12 tarp. We had our 10 pound tackle box, the depthfinder with its 10 d cell batteries and of course our 6 fishing poles. We were pretty tired, but did manage to scarf down a "Black and Blue" burger cooked over the fire. We made a few casts, caught a couple of little smallmouths, and called it a day.