I slept in as it was raining. Our only rain of the trip, which was a bonus. My canoe partner informed me he had already seen 3 groups come in and 7 leaving that morning. Cooked up some biscuits and gravy for breakfast that was very good. Today we fished around Caribou and did very well catching walleye, all around 12-15 inches. Also caught several very nice Smallies. Had to thaw the steaks for an hour as they were still frozen. Fresh NY Strip on the 3rd night was a nice bonus. Mashed potato side. We had a huge snapping turtle hanging around camp all day. He almost got our stringer of walleye, but I yanked them out of the water when I saw him coming. Nice to have a cooler at that point, as I just filleted them and put on ice. Campsites across the lake were empty. Wind died down. Clouds rolled in. It was so dark, so quite, so still. We didn't even have a fire as everything was so wet. Just enjoyed the darkness and silence. Pretty nice end to the day.

On a side note. We watched at least 9 separate groups come in the Lizz to Caribou portage this day. I'm positive at least 8 of them were geared up for overnight paddles. One of them may have been day tripping, but still had a decent amount of gear. That means at least twice as many people entered via Lizz than should have. Lizz and Swamp combined have 4 permits per day. I am sure most of them were Meeds Lake (which I think is 3 permits?) entry points, or Morgan EP. Just trying to avoid a big portage. I had no idea people even did this, as it would never occur to me to have done this (ok, I'm naive' I guess). Frustrates me that so many people that love the solitude and beauty the BWCA provides would so blatantly break the rules. It leads to those sites on Caribou being full almost every night this time of year. Overuse. The Forest Service should set up shop here one day and just check permits ( I know they have a lot of other things to attend to). Ok, rant over, sorry.