Everyone slept in after our 25miles of travel the first 3 days. And everyone is in their routines of camp chores. Trent (firewood), Travis (purify water), Julie & Lucy (dishes), Matt (cooking), Myself & Ben (fish cleaning/cooking), Tara and Danika were floaters. Matt made half a box of blueberry pancakes for breakfast then we decided to paddle to the rock chairs for swimming, lounging, blueberry picking, and lunch. It was a hot day and a good day for swimming. The adults had Tuna, crackers, and cookies for lunch and the kids and Trent had PBJ and cookies. After lunch people headed back to camp. Tara and I took Lucy and Ben with us to fish the bay north of the rock chairs on our way back. Ben was still really wanting to catch a pike, so we put on some pike lures and trolled. I thought I had a snag at the same time Tara tells me she has a fish on, as Tara is reeling I soon realize we have each other, but I think mine is still hung up. I get Tara’s lure up and untangle it with my line then felt a head shake and the fish ran. I knew it had to be a pike at that size. I quickly gave the pole to Ben, yet had to hold on to the pole with one hand to begin with, as he wasn’t used to reeling with his left hand and the fish had the pole bent in half. I had Lucy get the measuring tape out and Tara kept the canoe from going toward a tree sticking out of the water as I told her it would break it off as it was only 8lb test. As the fight went on I was able to let go of the pole and Ben took over, fought the fish perfectly. Followed directions kept pressure on the fish but didn’t horse it, reeled down, slowly pulled the fish up. Then the fish surfaced before making another run, I knew it was a true giant and I wasn’t going to be able to fit it in the net. I contemplated going to shore but weren’t in a good place for that. As Ben got the fish back to the boat I noticed the fish only had the back treble still in his mouth and I was able to gill the big girl at the side of the canoe. I picked her up and we got a quick measurement 40” and 18” girth. We snapped a couple of quick pictures and got her back in the water. She revived pretty quickly and slowly swam off back into the depths. High fives all around, everyone just in aww hearts racing. Ben says “I’m never going to forget this moment the rest of my life!” I asked him how old are you, 9? I went on to explain to him that many guys go fishing their whole life trying to catch pike and never catch a 40” pike. And it’s truly a fish of a lifetime. The kid was grinning from ear to ear. So we continue to troll back to tell the rest of the group. I let Ben keep using my pole with the “lucky” lure (DHJ-14 firetiger) and we didn’t get too far before Ben had on another fish, and he hooked this one. I looked at him and asked him if he wanted to give this one to his sister. With a smile from ear to ear he looks at me and shakes his head no. I didn’t help him at all. He hooked, fought, and got the fish to the boat. We were able to net and land another heavy 33” pike. This pike had the middle treble hook broke off in his mouth, between the two fish they straightened the O ring on the middle treble hook and did a number to the back treble as well. A couple of pictures and a bit of reviving and she swam off. We came back to camp to tell the fish stories, the kids fished some more with leeches (day 4 and they are hooking their own leeches), and we planned the next days journey to Oyster. Later Matt also landed a 32” pike on a deep diving Shad Rap. We had 12.5 servings of Mountain House Chicken Teriyaki. It was a good amount and again tasted really good. No fish for dinner, all the pike we caught were over 30”. What an awful problem to have. I had graphed a number of fish earlier out deeper in 30ft of water and Tara and I went back out to jig for walleye, but had no luck. We had Raspberry crumble for dessert, again needed more and should have combined the two desserts. A couple groups passed through during the day, but again had the lake to ourselves. ~Ge-be-on-e-quet Lake