Weak daylight filtered through the walls of the tent, muted orange mixed with a dull brown. Only bright enough to make out the largest of the objects within the tent. One of which was my step son. A soft snore whispered form his lips and I smiled. He had slept pretty good. To be young again. I sat up, my body stiff from the previous day's activities coupled with the nights rest on an unfamiliar Thermarest sleeping pad. A groan escaped into the early dawn as I sat up, barely audible but enough that Joe's snoring abruptly ceased. I sat still for a few moments until his whispering snores resumed. Carefully and quietly I slipped on my clothes and shoes and exited the tent. Joe slept on.

Upon re-entering the world outside of my orange and brown Kelty tent I was greeted with one of the most serene sights in all of nature. A beautiful lake stretched out before me, still as glass while sheer granite walls embraced the water as if it they were the guardians of the night, protecting the dark waters as they slept. Towering evergreens framed the entire backdrop as still as a drop of dew just before it falls from a leaf. They waited silent and patient for the sun to warm the thermals and send them gracefully into their daytime dance recitals.

I slowly made my way to the edge of the precipice that served as boundary to our towering hillside camp. Nothing moved, not a leaf nor a pine needle. Not even an acrobatic dragonfly broke the stillness. I marveled at the unencumbered beauty and I felt my soul begin to re-fill after a year long hiatus.

There are only a few things that I can compare to the sights and wonders of these mornings in the BWCA. The solitude, the quiet stillness and the steaming cup of fresh pressed coffee. One would be my 3 year old's eyes on Christmas morning for a comparison.

Not long after the guys awoke and stumbled from their tents, rubbing their eyes and groaning as I had not long ago. I smiled and boiled up some water on my little pocket stove. I scooped some fresh ground Bigby coffee into their mugs and poured the hot water in. After a few minutes of steeping the screens were pressed down and the world's best cup of coffee was ready. We use French Press thermal travel mugs made by Bodum. They are plastic, lightweight and incredibly easy to use and clean.

We relaxed around camp for the morning. None of us were eager to jump back into the canoe but took our time with coffee and I whipped up a breakfast of fried eggs and bacon on an English muffin.

Soon enough we were eager to be out exploring and fishing. We hit the water with the pan of heading back into Bouder Bay to see if one of the campsites was empty. We still were not sold on our current site and left our options open.

Into Boulder Bay we went, trolling crankbaits the entire time. We picked up a handful of walleye and smallmouth bass. Much to our dismay the sites were still all taken. Although we kept a keen vigil it was our fate to stay in the campsite we had. The traffic in and out of Boulder Bay and down from LLC was more than enough to know that any vacated site would be filled up quite quick. We grew quite fond of our site anyways and we were all happy to be staying there.

As we made our way south towards the short portage into the Boulder River Dad snagged up in about 7 foot of water. We reversed directions and started paddling towards the snag. We could almost always un-snag by reversing over the object. As we neared the site where the line disappeared into the water Dad began to pull up on the rod, putting tension on the line to unfree the snag. It seemed to be stuck pretty good. He gave the rod a couple quick snaps to see if he could jerk it free when all of the sudden his rod tip was pulled into the water and his drag began to scream. All hell broke loose.

What seemed like an hour (more like 15 minute) the fish was close enough that I got my first glimpse. It was a tank! I knew the net would do us no good in this situation so I had Dad gently bring the fish to my right side and very slowly I slid my hand up behind the gill plate ready to pull back at the first sign of rejuvenation of the monster pike. It was tuckered out. Dad was fishing with 8lb test mono and a medium light rod. No leader. It took awhile to get the fish in close. We quickly measured it and took a few photos and then spent the next few minutes reviving the old girl before she/he finally took off of its own accord. We waited around for sometime to make sure it wasn't going to resurface belly up. A magnificent creature and I was worried we may have taken too long. Water temps were still pretty chilly which would explain why it was only in 7' of water. What a great moment we all had together.

We trolled around for awhile longer but the wind began to blow pretty hard. While tucked in the bay it wasn't terrible and we could still effectively troll and keep a heading but as we headed north it was more than we could overcome. We tried to hug the western shoreline with the notion that once we parallelled camp we would turn and let the wind blow us home but we couldn't even do that. We ended up getting blown across the bay and had to power paddle our way up the eastern side. we finally made it back to camp and decided that was it for paddling today. We had kept a few walleye and one small pike so I filetted them up for dinner and we enjoyed a great dinner of cajun fried fish.

We had a small campfire but once again were drove into the tents at dark by the skeeters.