Saturday, June 10, 2006. Mostly sunny with temps in the mid 60s.

The next morning we were up by 5am, eager to do some fishing. We had a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee. Then we ventured out onto the lake for our first taste of Quetico fishing. It didn't take long to locate fish. My brother Mike and I found a productive rock pile just southeast of camp. We quickly boated 8 walleyes, keeping 4 on the stringer for lunch. I also pulled an 18.5” small mouth off this rock pile. When the walleyes shut off, we ventured back into a large bay to the south that leads back to the Robin Lake portage. It was in this bay that Mike landed two large pike – a 36” and his personal best, a 41” – a nice fish! We worked our way back into the western end of the bay and decided to get out and stretch our legs. We walked a shallow creek bed back to a large beaver dam. The creek bed was loaded with moose and wolf tracks. We kicked up a swarm of mosquitoes and decided to head back to camp. We had fish to fry!

After a tasty lunch of walleye and stuffing, we packed up and prepared for the next leg of our journey. Our goal was to make it to the vicinity of Conk Lake. We were on the move again, wind in our faces.

We ended up taking a camp site just west of the spillway where Conk empties into Quetico Lake. The site didn't offer much shade, but would easily accommodate our 3 tents. It was here that Barley made his famous (now infamous) north woods sauerkraut. We’ve enjoyed this dish on several past trips, but this time, something went terribly wrong. Three of us experienced major gastro-intestinal issues and as a result, north woods sauerkraut has been banned from all future trips.

Despite the stomach issues, we headed out for an evening of fishing. Mike and I fished the bay to the west of camp picking up many little smallmouth. I did manage a 17”. Matt and Zach fished below the spillway and picked up half a dozen or so smallmouth ranging from 17”-20”. We fished until dark, enjoying the nice weather and glassy conditions. We eventually fished our way back to camp. After discussing our strategy for the next morning, we hit the sack – again exhausted.