We woke up to yet another sunny day. Man the weather was turning out to be one of the highlights of the trip and not poor like I expected. I woke up right as the sun was beginning to rise across the lake and I just sat and watched for a while as the sun slowly burned the fog off the lake. I sure love those misty mornings on the lakes up there, so beautiful! We had or breakfast of oatmeal, poptarts and granola bars; packed up camp and headed out to our destination of Gaskin. It was a bit windy but the wind was from the west so we decided to tackle winchell to save some portaging and to just see some new scenery. It turned out being a good choice as the wind was at our back and it is a pretty lake. It did seem to never end though (such a big lake)… The portages were not too tough and we were at our site on the North shore of Gaskin before 11am.

The wind was continuing to pick up a bit and it looked like a front was coming through. We set up camp and got some lunch and relaxed a bit. Most people took naps or sun bathed and I did some shore fishing and caught 3 small mouth bass, one being the biggest of the trip at 18” ( I know that’s not that big but that’s how poor the fishing was). After a while the wind started to die down a bit so we went out fishing for a couple hours again only catching a few bass and Northerns. I couldn’t understand what was up with the fish. We headed back to camp and we collected some firewood, hung the hammock, and tidied up camp a bit more. I grabbed my Bible, headed down to the shoreline, read for an hour and cast out a slip bobber, catching two small bass. As evening started to inch closer the slip bobber started to go down with some regularity. So, I ran to get another pole and set up another slip bobber and caught a few more bass and some small walleyes. Then I landed a 21” walleye and right after I got him off one hook the other bobber went down so I set the hook and felt a big fish on the end of the line. I got it about halfway in when it broke my line, I was pretty disappointed to say the least. So, I put a leech on the other hook and cast that out and went to tie up the other pole again and the bobber started to go down right away. So, I yelled to Chelsea (my brother’s girlfriend) to come catch it. She come down and sets the hook and of course reels in a 25” walleye. She was pretty excited about it so I didn’t mind. Its fun to see other people catch fish too. So I was starting to get pretty excited about some evening walleye fishing.

So, we fried up some fresh fish and stuffing for dinner and headed out for the evening. Earlier in the day I was eyeing up a pinch point between two islands where it came up to 5’ surrounded by 20 fow. So we headed out there and anchored. In a couple hours we managed 5 walleyes but I probably missed close to 20. It was pretty frustrating but they were biting very lightly and being very finicky. We cast out slip bobbers too but we got none on those. So, I don’t know if the bottom was just different depths all around us so we didn’t have them at a good depth or what but it made me think about investing in a depth finder. I would say we were probably fishing in about 10 fow though. It was a fun evening but it was tough knowing they were down there but we couldn’t catch them. We started paddling back when we began to lose light. We made a campfire when we got back, made some hot drinks, and then went to play some cards for a while in the tent. Then most of the group headed to bed and my brother and I went to sit and talk about by the campfire. There’s just something amazing about staring into a fire and listening to the loons call from across the lake as you sit and reflect about life. Such wonderful bliss.

Lakes traveled: Omega, Winchell, Gaskin