Tuesday, July 23, 2019 Today we planned to portage into Rifle Lake, portage out the other end and try to get back into the Kawishiwi River to camp. We were WAY over ambitious. We missed the portage into Rifle Lake and had to backtrack after I let one of the boys make navigation decisions. Then the portage into Rifle Lake was a bit harder than we had anticipated. Lucky for us the family that was camping on the only Rifle Lake campsite was packing to leave as we reached the end of the portage, and we decided to get some rest before trying the longer portage at the other end of the lake. 

Also, portage 603 is tricky to find. It starts right at the rapids, not at the beginning of the pool preceding the rapids. It doesn't have much room either. While the other two canoes went through, I had the boys in my canoe fish and one managed to hook a nice fish and fought it for several minutes before losing it. He was pretty bummed as it would have been his first. 

After setting camp, I decided to cast from the big rock that the fire grate sat on. My first cast I hooked a fish. The boys were excited as I played it in. It came easily and I figured I had a walleye. The water was dark and stained, so I couldn't see the fish, but when I got it close to shore and lifted my rod to bring it up where I could grab it, an enormous head emerged. It was a huge northern, too big for me to reach across the back of his head. With his head out of the water he thrashed, spit the hook, and was gone. Everyone was silent. That would be the biggest fish seen all week. 

That night we were out on the lake for a couple of hours. My son landed a small largemouth from the portage landing. We trolled, casted, and jigged. I finally managed a small largemouth on a popper. The other boys lost a couple of fish, but none landed. We did see several beaver, including one that surfaced right next to the boys canoe.