We woke up the next morning to a foggy Disappointment Lake. Got lots of great computer wallpaper shots with the digital camera. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee/hot chocolate, we headed out onto the lake. With the overcast skies, the smallmouth action was hot. We kept a few for the stringer. Later we went in for some smallie shore lunch with fried potatoes and onion. After cleaning up, we just relaxed around camp. Ben whittled some spears from long branches he’d picked up on a wood run. Later he took out the canoe solo and just paddled around the shallows. I was entertained by the pine squirrels cutting down and gathering pinecones and stashing them in the trees behind our tent. They were not the least concerned about the new neighbors and just went on about their business as if we weren’t even there. We also had a snapping turtle pop up several times to check things out.

For dinner we had B-Dub pizza – a recipe I’d seen on BWCA.com. It was a big hit! Later, as we headed back out for some more fishing, a couple of gentlemen with thick southern accents paddled up in a loaded canoe. They were dragging tail and looking for a place to setup camp. I steered them over to the site we had passed on a day earlier. I wished them luck. I knew their chances weren’t good. We had seen some canoe traffic earlier in the day on that side of the lake.

That evening, the still conditions were perfect for fishing top water baits. I had purchased a couple of new poppers just for this occasion. The bass could not resist. Ben landed a nice 16.5 incher off a rock pile near the island closet to our campsite - his largest smallmouth ever. I had a huge smallmouth spit the hook after going airborne. My son and I both became big top water fans after this trip. We fished until dark and then headed into camp. We enjoyed some nice conversation around the campfire. We talked about school and girls and baseball and bats! The bats were very active during this trip, zigzagging between trees and branches, sometimes passing within inches of us. We listened in silence at times to the sounds of the night. The loons were especially vocal this evening. Later I doused the coals and we retired to the tent for the night.