One big mistake that we made often throughout this trip pertained to fishing at the right time. We spent too much energy fishing during the hot part of the day. That seems like common sense but we were so anxious to fish that we wet our lines whenever we had good energy - which never seemed to be at dawn or at dusk (with the exception of 1 or 2 evenings). We've definitely changed our attack over the years and have had great luck fishing early morning and around nightfall. The other big lesson we learned was to always have emergency water. We happened to get lost one afternoon trying to get from Lunar to Rivalry Lake. It was the hottest day of a very hot trip and we were on a game trail rather than the actual trail. Needless to say, we became dehydrated over the several hours that we were lost. Somehow, Big John led us to where we needed to be. Upon seeing water and being sunburnt and thirsty, I sprinted towards the shore. Strangely enough, once I got out, I realized I had dozens and dozens of baby bloodsuckers on both of my feet. My dad and I rubbed the baby leeches off. After finally finding water though, the leeches didn't put much of a damper on my mood. I was ecstatic to not be lost in the woods without water anymore. The last lesson we learned relates to the amount of gear that we need. We brought too much weight with us and our bodies were not quite ready for it. Add on the fact that we had to go through 7 lakes and 6 portages on 'Baby Leeches Day' and we were really feeling every extra pound of gear. Since that first trip, we've taken care to pack lighter and lighter every trip.