Sunday, June 24:

I had planned to get up at 6:30, but it was closer to 8:30. I was really tired and cold and had not slept well. Today started cloudy, windy (N to NE wind), and cold. The sun started to peek through the clouds at 12:30, just about the time that I finally got organized and left for Raven Lake. I had hoped to leave much earlier. I also had hoped for a 2-hour trip to Raven, but it turned out to be closer to 2.5 to 3 hours, partly because I had a bit of trouble locating the mouth of the stream into Raven. Once I reached Roe Lake, the sun was shining full and it lasted until sunset. It even got hot. I finally got on the water at Raven at 3:30. I needed to leave Raven by 5 to get back to Sagus for dinner, etc.

The portage from Sagus into Roe is quite easy and not as “thin” as the portage between Sagus and Fraser. I met two women at the landing on Roe; that seemed wonderfully strange because I had not seen any person in a few days and here we met in a remoter area with them coming from the direction of Cap Lake. We had a nice short chat.

The lengths of the portages into Raven are incorrect on the McKenzie map. The map shows the longer portage first, but it is only about 5+ rods, and it starts maybe 100 yards from the mouth of the stream. There is no way to avoid it: there is a small drop at the portage and there is a large boulder in the middle of the stream. The second portage starts just where the rapids end coming down out of Raven, and it is about 40+ rods long. Between the two portages the stream does some serious meandering; I would think that people in canoes longer than 17 feet would have trouble. It reminds me of the stream coming out of Quetico’s Isabella Lake. The landing at the second portage is very mucky. The mud/muck seemed to float; it kind of rebounded when I stuck my paddle into it. I moved the boat forward by shoving with the paddle and by grabbing the brush on either side of the canoe and pulling until I could get out of the boat without sinking into the muck. There is a tree near the start of the portage that hangs over the trail at about a 30° angle. You have to put the canoe on the ground and drag it under the tree. The trail is still fairly open. You have to step over a few trees here and there.

I trolled mid-lake and parallel to the long axis of the lake. I tried two different deep divers: a 3.5 inch Berkley Flicker Minnow in Slick Mouse (a kind of pearlescent white with a dark gray top), and a 4.75 inch Rapala Jointed Deep Husky Jerk in Yellow Perch. I caught two 20 inch lake trout, one on each lure, within an hour. They were beautiful fish. They were the first lake trout I had ever caught! It was really obvious when they took the lures. I had replaced the treble hooks with single hooks on which I had pinched the barbs; these changes did not seem to detract from my ability to catch fish.

All I needed for a Grand Slam on this trip was a northern pike and a smallmouth bass! I had caught small- and large-mouth bass before, and walleye, but I’d never caught a pike. So this little jaunt today had seen two goals met: reaching a PMA lake and catching a lake trout.

Raven is a really pretty little lake in the Mugwump Lake PMA, although there seems to be some blowdown or burned areas on the western shore. The end of the portage at Raven would make a nice campsite, and I saw another possible spot further NE along the eastern shore. I did not look for the old campsite on the western shore. I definitely recommend getting a PMA permit to camp on Raven. It offers solitude and great lake trout fishing.

It took me only 2 hours to get back to camp on Sagus Lake. Just as I was approaching the campsite around 7 PM, an adult Bald Eagle flew from a large white pine just above me. I had not noticed the bird before that moment. That was a cool sight.

I planned to leave the next day and rain was expected tonight. After dinner I packed everything away and turned the canoe over on land to keep the anticipated rain out of it. Fish were rising just off the campsite this evening. No wonder with all the mayflies around. Mosquitoes came out by the hundreds (thousands?) at sundown around 9 PM. I was praising God for a good day.