I was up early and tried to repeat our shore-fishing successes, but had no luck this time. I did manage to spot a big hare at the edge of camp and get a blurry picture. We ate a quick breakfast, packed ourselves some lunch, and headed out. We paddled north through the small passage, east passed Eagle Island (my name, given for the gang of bald eagles perched on dead trees on the island’s southern point), around Williamson Island, north through the narrows, and finally east to the portage to the Kawishiwi River. We spent the middle of the day fishing the rapids.

I had a pretty good few hours. I caught two eater-sized walleye using the TGO method to swirl a leech in the end of the rapids. I caught a personal best smallie at just over 18 inches – also on a plain leech and hook. And finally I hooked a pike just under 30 inches. This was on my lighter rod with lighter line and I was standing on solid shore, so I took my sweet time fighting this one. When he finally let himself come into the shallows the hook was just barely tucked into the corner of his mouth. It slipped right out when I pushed. I pointed him towards the deep water and he swam down slowly but directly. I love that thrill of a good release as much as I love the catching. This one felt especially good after f@*$!ng up the last one.

Unfortunately, my dad didn’t catch anything. Worse than that, I was just sort of in my own world and didn’t help him get anything. He came out to fish with me, not to watch me fish. We talked about it later and I apologized for ignoring him.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at Williamson Island. I’d read about it on these forums including the story/history/legend the Williamson family made this their annual getaway and carved their name in the rock. It’s a beautiful place and I resolved to come back and stay there (see my trip report from 2018!).

Over a walleye dinner we had some really good father son talk. I talked about my girlfriend and told him of the problems we were having. He told me about getting back to rock climbing and hiking after a bad fall and broken leg the past fall. It was good to be up there with him. Then it was night, we went to sleep, and prepared for our travel day out the next morning.