•We awoke to cloudy skies, cool temps and a steady wind out of the northeast. •I heated up some water for coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. •The sun poked its head out once or twice but it appeared that the rest of the day would consist of mostly cloudy skies and wind. •This changed around 1 or 2pm as the sunny blue skies displaced the clouds from before. What a difference the sun makes! I would categorize this feeling as a “morale booster”. Cool, but comfortable in the sun, all made possible by diminished winds. •We set out in the canoe to fish the island located about a half a mile to the east of our campsite. •We trolled crankbaits of varying depths, pitched jigs and vertically jigged in varying depths, but couldn’t find any fish? Weird. •We enjoyed our cheese and sausage at a campsite, which sat approximately 50ft above the lake. The wind caused it to be a bit cooler on top of the island, but the added elevation made for a picturesque view. This was also a pretty nice campsite. • After lunch we continued around the large island that dominates the northeast body of Carp. We picked up several pike, including one that was probably 30” +/- a couple inches. • The southern side of the big island has quite a bit of structure, including a shallow flat that extends 25-50 yards from the campsite that our buddy from Day 1 was camped at. There is also a reef surrounded by very deep water a 100 yards or so east of that campsite. Several pike were picked up off that reef vertically jigging in approx 30 ft of water. No walleye. • We continued around the island, trolling 20ft taildancers. Suddenly my rod doubled over. I presumed we had another decent size pike or possibly a walleye. As it turned out, I had a beast smallie! Dad struggled with the glare from the water on the camera and in my haste to get this beautiful fish back in the water, I forgot to take a measure. This fish was definitely over 20” and I estimate that it was closer to 22” or 23”. Definitely my biggest smallie. •We continued around the island trolling 20ft taildancers and I picked up another couple of pike. No significant size. •Dinner consisted of tacos and corn. •As the sun set, temps began to plummet. A nice fire would be a necessity tonight. •Earlier in the afternoon, before heading out to fish, we laid out the split wood that we had accumulated the day before and placed it on a south facing slab of rock to help further the drying process. •Despite the preparation, this was a stubborn fire that took extra hand holding before it really got going. Much of the wood was balsam fir that seemed very sappy and probably still a little damp. But after some serious tender loving care, this fire was producing heat. We never saw frost, but temps had to be very near freezing that evening and night. •Clear skies = bright stars. And a bright waxing moon that I would guess was only a day or two from complete fullness.