I prepped a hearty breakfast of warm instant white rice in milk w/brown sugar and cinnamon while Captn Tony caught some smallies from shore on leeches and slip bobbers. We enjoyed the quite beauty of the morning in the BWCA before we packed up and prepped our fishing rods for fishing on our way to Iron Lake.

Our initial fishing thoughts from reports was to target around 15-20-25 ft of water for the walleye and so we rigged our rods with Flicker shads and put a swivel about 3 ft in front of it with a 1 oz. clip on weight to get it down to the deeper depths. The plan was to troll through spots that looked to hit our fishing parameters on the way through Tiger Bay to Iron Lake.

We swung around the corner prior to Tiger Bay with a friendly light wind pushing along a steep rock ledge. The trusty Garmin Echomap 93SV showed us at 22 ft so we ran the canoes 22 ft on the quick drop off and BAM! something hits the line. 24 inch walleye. We circle back and hit the contour again and BAM! 4 pound smallie. We let the wind drift us over a 10-15 ft point right after the drop off and my Garmin is showing me stacks of fish. We go over the point half a dozen times and the party picks up some more smallies and some small walleye. We should have stayed at our camp and focused on Tiger Bay a little bit more! But, no, we are determined to get to Iron Lake where we can try out our fishing knowledge on our researched spots.

So far weather is great and all insects, aside from stable fly's, are really a non-issue.

We see a few other canoes on their way out as we continue to the Bottle Lake portage. Due to the low water this year, the end of Bottle portage is a mud hole. We do some head scratching to figure out the best way to get all our gear in the canoe and stay clean and finally admit to ourselves that we will be getting muddy. So we step through the stinky mud trying to avoid a shoe falling into the brown abyss and get items loaded.

Back on the water! We clean our shoes over the sides of the canoe and carry-on. A little bit later we are sitting on our furthest destination - IRON LAKE -

We have a laser focused agenda to try and get to Petersen Island where there is a 4 star camp spot but as we checked other camps as we went along we saw another group coming behind us. None of the camps looked all that great and we wanted to try and get to a remote spot to put us close to a lot of the contours we had been scoping out on our maps.

As we drew closer to the Petersen Island spot I figured that we wouldn't get it because we have had great luck in getting the spot we wanted for years and years and that luck was bound to change.

As we rounded the corner for the camp we see people at the camp! I KNEW IT!! Our luck had finally went the other way and we would be looking for something closer to Curtain Falls, which was frustrating since the camps were quite a ways apart and we were pretty tired from prior days paddling. WAIT! COULD IT BE? I see someone carrying a pack down to a canoe. yes! Yes! YES! they are leaving. What luck again, we end up rolling into Petersen Island camp just as the other group is leaving.

What a great camp, the reviews weren't lying. A great fire pit, nice pads for a couple tents and space between the pines to set up some relaxing hammocks. We made it in time for some lunch before Nick and I decided to put the fishing gear in the canoe and explore a little bit. Unfortunately the wind had picked up quite a bit and it was making trying to fish the deeper unprotected waters difficult to navigate. We fish around Petersen Island pulling some cranks and pick up a couple small pike and a bass.

We decide to call it a day and relax to a nice supper of fish and rice. Our wills to fish were not strong enough to overcome the winds that we saw whipping around the island. We decided to fish around the point of the island with slip bobbers and leeches and picked up a couple small walleye before we went to sleep.