Did I say sleep in? Um, no chance of that happening. I was up the next morning around 5:30, and could still hear Curt lightly snoring in the tent next to me. I got up, walked around camp a little to shake off the morning chill, and got the coffee going. Curt was awake just after 6:00, so we just started our day out a little earlier than planned.

We fished our magic reef, caught a few more fish that we released, then headed over to Curtain Falls and spent the rest of the morning and early part of the afternoon there. We fished near the portage in the current, caught more fish, then beached the canoe and headed up the portage trail, first checking out the short portage to the bay north of there where we caught a smallmouth that was on its bed, then up the main portage to the top of the falls. We caught a couple more smallmouths above the falls, took some pictures, then headed back down, going down to the waters edge to fish some eddies and pools along the way. We didn't get any fish that way, but probably would have if we would have given it more time.

We spent more time fishing from the rocks near the portage, found 2 more willing walleyes, then headed down below most of the current to the deeper pools more towards the lake. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but again the walleyes cooperated and we boated a couple more. We decided to head back to camp, get some lunch, and see what else the day would bring.

What the day brought was motivation to fix the very junky, broke down, uneven and trash filled kitchen area at our site. We removed all the logs, kept the decent ones and rebuilt it from the ground up using the rocks we found underneath all the mess to balance and stabilize the seats. There were at least 6 leftover logs when we were done, so we made a "gear rack" near the tent pads for future groups to set packs on if they wanted. It was better than tossing them back into the forest. We picked up a lot of trash, everything that you can imagine that gets dropped between rotting logs over the course of years. Forks, lures, wrappers, fishing line, tent stakes, and more. It all went in our trash bag, and the forks will come with us on future trips as a reminder of our project. It took a few hours to do it all, but it was a great way to pass the beautiful afternoon hours in the sun.

We ate dinner, hit the magic reef for a while and caught a couple small pike, then followed the waves and wind into a small cove near our camp and found the walleyes stacked next to a deep shoreline dropoff. Twister tails did the trick again and we caught several nice eater sized fish. Having already eaten dinner, we released them all to be caught another day. They would have made for one great meal though! We headed back to camp, listened to the weather for the night and got a little suprise- we were under a frost advisory! It had cooled off considerably towards sunset, and with a clear sky, we could tell the forecast was probably going to be accurate. We had a campfire and finished off the Captain. Well, Curt finished it, without any coke to mix it with, and only cherry Mio as an option, I passed that opportunity on to him. We turned in late again after a good campfire, and looked forward to our last full day on Iron.