Sept 10, 2015 Day 7: We were up at 6:15 and quickly got camp down. We made oatmeal because it was cold along with hot chocolate. That helped get us going, but it was a chilly morning, even I was wearing fleece gloves and a winter hat now too. We were on the water at 7:40. We had 5 portages ahead and Laura wasn’t looking forward to that at all. We had two of them done by 9 and were at the 5th and final one by 11:30, I thought we were making decent time on our way to Ensign Lake. We stopped at Cattyman falls and took some pictures. Laura was happy to see a waterfall. At that portage we met a family in two heavy PVC canoes that were stuffed to the gunnels with stuff. I think they had a rifle too. They were pleasant, but had stuff all over both ends of the portage. We cruised out of there to our last portage, 105 rods. It wasn’t bad going in our direction, but going the other way isn’t fun, especially heavily loaded early in a trip. Laura even took some video as we portaged. Once on Ensign, it was like a different day. It was blowing hard and the sun was covered in clouds. I could also see a very large group across the lake at a campsite. We hit the water and fought the wind. Laura was pretty tired so I was doing most of the paddling at this point. As we went by campsites I had circled on my map, they were all taken. We moved further and further West on the lake, through the narrows and still all taken, canoes were everywhere. This wasn’t wilderness anymore, this was a recreational lake. We kept paddling and finally found a site. Laura was wiped. We got to shore and had lunch, tuna salad and some trail mix. As we ate we noticed quite a few ground squirrels running around. After lunch we felt like the wind was dying down so we loaded up for fishing. We trolled around looking for reefs but I didn’t see anything. I did bring the anchor bag with a large rock this time and we paddled into a narrows between two islands. I gently lowered the anchor and we began to jig. I used slimers and Laura used gulp 5” leaches. After a few casts and jigging I felt a bite. I set the hook and up came a small northern! Woo hoo! I put it on the stringer and we kept fishing. No more bites and the wind was picking up again. No matter, we had dinner and Laura was thrilled it was a northern, but miffed she didn’t catch it. I caught it on my repaired rod too, which made me happy. I got turned around a bit as we paddled back, but we soon figured it out. Back in camp we made wild rice and fried up the pike, apple crisp for dessert, yum! It started getting cold so as soon as the dishes were done and our teeth were brushed we went to bed. I wrote for a little while and then succumbed to sleep after a very long day.