I began the day watching the sunrise ascend above the trees. Fishing the east side coves again didn’t prove productive so I went back to camp and waited for the wind to calm down. Once it did, I paddled back to the west side of the island to see about catching some more smallies on top-water. The smallmouth were there and the top-water fishing was fantastic. I caught a handful more of seventeen to nineteen inch smallmouth all on the Lucky 13. They were very aggressive, one time I had a smallmouth come loose from the lure and before the lure could surface another one snatched it up. I required a break in the action, so I headed to a flat point and pulled over to stand up and stretch. While I was there I decided to make a few casts with the Lucky 13. On my second cast, not more than ten feet from shore, I saw a huge pike come out of nowhere. I froze the lure as the pike looked on in caution. It slowly moved toward the lure and just sucked it off the surface. I let her swim with it for about a foot and then swung the rod back crossing her eyes. It made a couple of strong runs, but since I hooked it so close to shore it didn’t have a chance. I was able to coax her onto the level shoreline and grab her. I broke out the measuring tape and it said forty-three inches on the nose. This was the biggest pike I had ever caught before. Three big problems existed after the catch: 1) I didn’t have any film left in the disposable camera to take a picture of the fish 2) The spare camera was back at camp and 3) There was no one there to take a picture of me holding up my trophy. I just sat her back in the water and watched her swim away. I fished the west side of the island off and on the rest of the day with the same success. I could not have asked for much better fishing. As I was taking another break on the same point where the pike was caught a solo canoeist stopped by to chat with me while he waited for his tandem canoe partners who were lagging behind. This gave me an opportunity to brag about the pike I had caught. Once the rest of his party arrived, he relayed my conquest on to them and I felt proud. It was nice talking to someone other than Rocky the squirrel back at camp. During my evening fire I heard noises from a critter running through camp. I quickly turned on my headlamp and was able to see an otter. I watched as it ran across my granite front porch and dove into the lake. I could see its eyes reflecting back at me from the lake when I looked over that way.