Thursday, October 19, 2017 I awoke early, before daylight, and crept out of the tent to a glorious morning. It was a little breezy, but the temp was around 50 degrees which was perfect. I sat on a rock ledge overlooking the falls and snapped a couple of nice sunrise pictures. I felt rested enough, but not fully because Douglas was squirming around like there was a mouse in his bag all night long and so I woke a lot. I forgot how active of a sleeper he can be.

Doug and my dad crawled out of the tent shortly after sunrise and I greeted Doug with a hot bowl of oatmeal and dad with a hot cup of coffee. After breakfast we fished at the bottom of the falls where dad landed a nice Walleye, probably 3-4 pounder, which we strung up to a bush at the shoreline. We all hiked back up to camp at the top of the falls to get the canoe so we could fish Crooked Lake a little and when we came back, Doug spotted two otter's fighting over Dad's walleye. I ran over, but it was too late, 3/4 of dad's walleye was gone and there was a family of 4 otter's spy hopping out of the water and hissing at us like we're the bad guys! I've been robbed by snapping turtles before, but this was a first for me. We fished from land a little and dad lost a big northern right at shore (it's my fault as she slipped away as I tried to grab her and cut the line). We fished some more in Crooked, Douglas and I each LDR'd (long distance released) one, but dad was able to eater sized northerns so the skunk was out of the canoe. I snapped a few pics of Doug by one of the International Boundary Markers. He thought it was pretty awesome to straddle "the border". 

After a snack lunch, Doug wanted to go hiking to explore our area a little so off we went while dad fished and relaxed at the bottom of the falls. I knew there was a USFS Ranger Storage Shed around here somewhere, but I wasn't sure where and Douglas led us right to it. The trail was getting really narrow, more like a game trail and I wanted to turn back, but Doug insisted we go just a little farther and we stumbled right into the cabin. It was cool and Doug was fascinated as he proceeded to ask me question after question about it. I wish I had more answers. We peeked in one of the windows and all I could see was lumber, some latrines, and a couple of wheel barrows.

Back at camp we cooked up some Knorr rice/pasta blend and pan fried the northern for a delicious dinner and then we cleaned up and headed to the bottom of the falls to see if the evening bite would be better. It was slow, however, I was able to land a Walleye right at sunset that was almost a replica of my dad's in the 3-4 pound range so we strung that one up in an eddy just below the falls, close to our campsite hoping that the otter family wouldn't find it. We had a fire back at camp and Doug hit the wall and crawled into his bag at 8, dad and I sat by the fire sipping some whisky while we solved the worlds problems and set the agenda for tomorrow. It was another crystal clear night and we watched satellites and stars for a while. I think we made it until 9:30 again before turning in. Saw one other canoe today, they stopped for lunch at a site down stream from the falls and then headed down Crooked Lake.