Saturday, August 12, 2006

Another beautiful morning to start the day. After breakfast we loaded up the canoes with our fishing gear and made our way to Malberg. After a few small portages, one medium portage and some creek paddling, we entered Koma. We fished our way across Koma catching several smallies, northern and walleyes. We released these fish and continued to Malberg. Fishing was slower than the previous day, but the fish were much bigger in size. Several large Northerns were caught and released as well as several large Smallies. We only caught 1 walleye, but the size of the other fish made up for it. I broke my line on a large northern right at the boat. It was fun! The wind started to pick up from the south giving Malberg some whitecaps and a head wind to paddle into on our return trip to Polly.

After several hours of fishing and exploring, we decided to make our way back to Polly into the strong wind and see if we could catch some dinner. After taking the 127 rod portage from Koma to an unnamed pond, we were rewarded with a large bull moose sitting in the middle of the pond having a snack. It was a beautiful site. He just sat there and ate while we watched him for almost 30 minutes. Very cool and the highlight of our trip! We realized he might be there a while and we had to continue moving on if we wanted to get back to Polly and still have time to catch supper. The problem was that this pond was not very big and he was right in the middle. We were not sure how he would react to us paddling so close to him, but decided to risk it. After quickly moving past him, we were on our way. Hopefully our pictures turn out.

After arriving back at Polly, we managed to catch a few fish for dinner and prepared to enjoy another relaxing night around the campfire. While we were relaxing and going over the days adventures, we watched several groups paddle around the lake looking for a campsite. Probably not the best plan, as most of the campsites were taken and it was almost dark.