At some point the previous day while I was wallowing in the rain I decided I was going to lay over today and not move camps. I had not yet gotten a chance to explore or fish Horseshoe at all, and I didn't really feel like packing up a soaking wet campsite and moving just for the sake of moving. I hadn't "taken in" this campsite at all, being marooned in a tent the previous day, so I wanted to lay down some roots and enjoy what was looking to be a nice day.

This was going to severely limit the amount of ground I would cover on this trip, but I was ok with that. In the planning stages, I had thoughts of travelling farther and checking many lakes off the ol' bucket list, but I knew I needed to stay flexible and what my body and mind were telling me were to just relax and enjoy the day and dry out.

I tried some fishing in the morning, but still could not get anything to bite. It was now that I realized how frustrating it can be to fish in a solo canoe. The slightest bit of wind just pushes you to a spot you didn't intend to be, or right up on shore. I've never taken the time to bother with an anchor - maybe I would try that next time.

I then set out on a day trip, with the plan being a loop up through the north arm of Horseshoe, over to Allen, down to Gaskin, then back to camp through the southern arm of Horseshoe - it would give me a chance to see and fish some other lakes, as well as pretty much all of Horseshoe.

So I trolled my way up through Horseshoe and around to the portage into Allen, which is a cool portage along a creek. Allen was a cool little lake with one campsite that is too small to accommodate much of a group, but if you're a solo or duo, I think you might enjoy having this lake to yourself. I fished Allen a little bit with, again, no success.

Allen took me to little Jump lake which took me to Gaskin. The landing from Jump to Gaskin was cool....note that I didn't say *easy*, but it was an interesting spot with some running water and a dam you can rest your boat against to get in.

I had a pretty good idea what I was in store for on Gaskin, but still wanted to check out this lake a bit. It was a little windy, and it doesn't take more than a *little* wind to get the chop going on this lake. My kayak paddle had me feeling in good control though and I had seen so many good fishing reports of this lake that I wanted to at least troll around for a bit.

So I set out into Gaskin trolling west around the peninsulas and islands, directly into the wind. It was challenging but didn't seem unsafe so I kept going for a while. Once I got to the largest expanse of open water in the central part of the lake though, I wasn't really loving it out there. So I turned around and started paddling with the wind back toward the eastern part of the lake. While I was now moving quite a bit faster, I found it just as challenging going with the wind...any time I wasn't running parallel with the wind, it wanted to grab the back of my boat and try to turn me sideways. So it took some muscle to keep myself from getting blown sideways.

I stopped at the campsite on the southern peninsula with the staircase for a rest. Cool site, but landing and then loading again was dicey as heck with the water and wind rolling directly into me and my boat along the rocky shoreline.

But all went fine and I finished the paddle through Gaskin and headed through the portage back into Horseshoe. Going east on the southern arm of Horseshoe was much like going east on Gaskin - winds coming from behind me were making for tricky paddling and no chances to stop and do any fishing beyond trolling. I was on the lookout for the campsite on this arm of the lake, but couldn't even see it from the lake and couldn't really slow down to look for it without getting blown around.

Got back to camp in early afternoon and had some time to kill. This is when some thoughts of loneliness creep in when you're solo. These are long days and even though I felt like I had already done a lot this day, it was still many hours until sundown. I didn't really feel like going back out on the lake at all because it was just too breezy to do any fishing. I was a little annoyed that I couldn't swim from my campsite because I really wanted to cool off and remove some accumulated grime.

But, it wasn't raining and I was happy enough hanging out tossing a leech under a slip bobber into the lake and doing some reading. I did take the boat back out once again in the evening trying to finally land my elusive first fish of the trip, but was stymied once again.

I spent the evening with an awesome sunset, a nice campfire, a painted turtle that really liked creeping around my camp and showing up in odd places, and a few tears, as this was the one-year anniversary of the death of my brother, who was also my best friend. I sat, recalling all of the good times we had together over the years, but unable to not think of all that we would be missing out on in the years to come. I definitely didn't feel alone this night. Rest easy brother, it was nice to spend the night with you.