Sunday, September 06, 2020 Our next morning dawned with threatening clouds on the horizon and again a rather "fresh" breeze. This made for another lazy morning around camp but lazy was good! As things turned toward noon, the leaden skies started to issue a few rumbles from the distance so we took a break from our still non-productive shore fishing and erected a tarp. The sky darkened as the rumbling became more frequent along with the wind picking up a bit and it looked like we were in for a good old thunderstorm. Fortunately for us, the bulk of the storm slid by to our north and all we got was a few sprinkles over the next hour or so. This was just enough to get everything wet but when the rain ended, it all dried quickly in the steady wind.

Since fish was on the menu for supper again we decided that another attempt in the canoes was needed, so off we went into the choppy water, rock anchors at the ready. This time Jeff and I decided to check out a few inlets around the corner to our north while Craig and Steve went back again to the previous day's islands. The area that Jeff and I fished looked promising with lots of structure and variations of depth but the weather front that moved through must have given the fish lockjaw and we couldn't even manage a nibble. While sitting in a protected little bay, we could see white caps forming in the more open part of the lake so we decided a return to camp was in order in case the waves got any bigger yet. We were able to hopscotch along some islands on the way back which lessened the amount of bounce that we had to navigate through. Steve was lucky enough to haul in a nice-sized bass where they had fished but that is all he and Craig brought back to camp.

Before supper, Steve decided to make one more attempt at shore fishing and got excited when he saw a swirl near his bobber. It was soon revealed that the swirling in the water was a curious and playful otter who was just as interested in us as we were in it. It continued to pop it's head up out of the water as it gave us one quick peek after another. It seemed that this animal wanted to come ashore, which it actually did at one point but after getting another look at us, it was back in the lake again. We were impressed with how big these creatures actually were and admired the sleek swimming movements it displayed. After a visit that we both seemed to enjoy, the otter moved on to explore new territory. 

With just that one fish, which we did clean and fry up, more freeze-dried food would be needed for everyone to get enough to eat. This time it was some curried vegetables from Backpacker's Pantry--again, not bad!

As the evening progressed the wind continued to increase. At one point it looked like the horizon to our west was on fire with a big column of smoke billowing up. I wondered if there had been a lightning strike from the day's earlier storm. It soon was apparent, however that the "smoke" was just the clouds being quickly moved by the wind and the orange glow was a pretty sunset. As darkness fell we enjoyed another fire but it did not last long since the strong breeze meant plenty of air for the flames and the wood we had accumulated burned up quickly. Before turning in for the night, I decided to make one last "pit-stop" in the woods a bit behind our tent. As I turned around to go back to the tent I was quite startled to see that the otter had returned and was standing there watching me from just a couple feet away!! As soon as we made eye contact (and I had jumped about two feet off the ground!) it casually ambled back down to the water. When I told the guys about it they laughed at what a sight I must have been as this critter startled me.

Once we were in the tents we could hear the wind continue to blow, and in fact get stronger even though it was now well after sunset. It continued to howl all night and at one point brought some light rain with it. Some of the gusts really shook the tent and we started to worry about the possibility of a tree or two coming down. Fortunately that never happened and we were able to get some shut-eye even with the noisy gale moving through the forest.