One of the good things about a light-colored tent is that it seems easier to wake up when a day breaks bright and sunny. I get up to brew some coffee at 6:30, and can already feel the warmth rolling in as the sun burns the mist off the lake.

As the others wake and we get packed, we can see it’s going to be a nice morning- we get to paddle on some glass!

Conmee Lake has always been on my list of places to camp and fish hard, and today is going to be the day we get there. The fishing thus far on the trip has been a bit disappointing, ramping expectations up further. We make the 30 rod portage into a pond, paddle for 3 minutes, and get out again for an easy carry into Conmee. Finally! As I am organizing some gear, Greg is the first to throw a cast into these hallowed waters, and catches a bass…but it’s a largemouth! There are a couple more bucketmouths in this southern bay which keeps us occupied as we wait for Brian and Pete to get in so we can seek out campsites together. I had done some pre-trip research on campsites on Conmee, and found that while there are several options, not too many people are wild about any one of them. One that most consider to be the best option was open and was the first one we paddled by. As we approached it, we saw a tandem canoe down in the far west bay, and we wondered if they were heading our way. Since we didn’t have any better info on sites further east, we decide to pull in and set up camp. As we are setting up, the canoe we saw paddled up to us. It was two Atikokan high school teachers, and they were letting us know that there were solo campers scattered around this part of Conmee, and that we shouldn’t bother them since they were doing their senior overnight project. The campers didn’t have their own canoe, and were supposed to put up their own shelter for the night, have dinner, and do some journaling before being picked up the next day. They paddle off, and as we continue to make camp, a large multi=person canoe with four female teachers from the same group paddled by to say hello. They move on, and we cook the last of our fresh eggs as a brunch and relax in the warm sunlight.

Anxious to get out fishing, we gear up and work our way east, trying out likely-looking islands and points. We tie into some walleyes, but nothing larger than eating size. We decide that with the sunny conditions, we should push down to Suzanette to try some trout fishing and give the walleyes a rest. The short portage into Suz is a little hard to find (overgrown) but soon we slog across its muddy terrain where a loon awaited us as a welcoming party.

We troll Suzanette’s northern shore, with each of us probing different depths and lure choices to see what the lakers might like. Greg picks up a 15” soon after we start, not exactly what we are after but it puts us on the board. Working our way east, I get snagged twice in a row and lose one of my favorite Deep Tail Dancers to the bottom, just where it comes up quickly approaching the eastern shore. We turn back west and about halfway through our trolling pass, Greg ties into a bigger trout, which measured somewhere around 22” as I recall.

Still nothing for me, but we hear that in the other boat, Pete and Brian have caught one each. We work our way further westward, heading towards the cliff that is supposed to hold a message cache. What we both notice is that some hazy clouds are coming in and it’s getting a bit overcast—just what we were hoping for to get into some walleyes. So, both boats move back to Conmee and towards the main body of the lake, when both of us have a walleye on at the same time. Mine is eater-size, and I land and release it while Greg is clearly fighting something much bigger. We give a shout as we see the 27” beast come boatside.

Before long, another one of the same size was on, and Greg is grinning from ear to ear.

Two paddle strokes after that one is released, his rod bends deeply again. This time, it’s a 28” leviathan which was very heavy. Since we are near shore, we head over to get a good picture before releasing it.

Brian and Pete are shouting from their boat that something big is on, and paddle down to us to show it off since they want a picture but don’t have a camera. It’s another 28”.

So, Conmee hadn’t disappointed, to say the least, and we fished a productive area until it was nearly sundown. Our reward for braving the bugs in June is always lots of daylight, so we can fish until after 9 or 9:30pm usually with no problem visibility-wise. The bite shuts off, so we move to a rock to clean some of the eater-sized ones we caught while being rewarded with a stunner of a sunset.

Our walleye taco dinner awaited us, complete with grilled peppers and zucchini. Nothing like eating dinner at 10:30pm!