Saturday, May 20, 2021

In our bunkhouse we enjoyed a breakfast of cocoa and coffee, cereal and a muffin. We considered the weather forecast we’d been watching for days. It was already warm, muggy and buggy and the day was expected to be hot and sunny all afternoon until a cold front brought rain storms and colder temps to follow.

Before departing HJO, we had a long conversation with Dave about campsites and fishing on Croc. He gave us super helpful, detailed info. He knew another party was already occupying one of the campsites we were looking at (the second campsite from the west). No worries, we’d do a “drive by” and head elsewhere if necessary. I also ran our fishing plan by him (including our plan to do some slip bobber fishing with Gulp leeches). He suggested picking up live leeches from the Ugly Baby bait shop and gave us a leech locker to borrow and return when I’m up there for another trip later in June. Can't say enough about how helpful HJO has been for this trip and others.

We parked in overflow parking at the East Bearskin public access. Busy, busy on this Saturday morning. Another party of three paddlers—one tandem canoe, one kayak-canoe thingy—were putting in as we arrived and quickly made their way east out of sight.

Josef and I got our canoe loaded up, applied sunscreen and set off in ideal paddling conditions….in the wrong direction. Yep, after months of planning and staring at maps, I somehow mislocated the public access on my map. Somehow, I had in my mind that the public access was much further east and that our portage—from East Bearskin to Crocodile—was west of the public access. The portage is, in fact, two miles *east* of the public access. So, Josef and I headed west about a quarter mile before I realized my mistake and we turned the boat around. Just a little early-season paddle practice, right?

We found our portage with no trouble just beyond the falls, and noted the unused campsite near the falls we read about that can serve as an unofficial Plan B site if all Croc sites fill up. I loaded up a big pack and the canoe, which itself weighs in at 50+lbs, and headed up the steep ascent. Not an easy breezy first portage of the season, but, oh my, it felt so good to be hauling gear again.

I had distributed weight between the packs so Josef could confidently carry the two smaller packs, one each on our double portages. He more than held his own carrying a single pack and the bundled paddles/rods on his first carry. We enjoyed the walk back to Each Bearskin, hydrated and split a snack bar, and completed our double portage.

On Crocodile we checked out the top of the falls and then paddled over to the first campsite. It wasn't taken and we, too, passed it up. As we were told, the second campsite was indeed taken and we started our 3+mile paddle down Crocodile toward the other two campsites.

We considered the possibility of paddling the length of the lake only to find both eastside campsites occupied and having to make the paddle back west to the first campsite. I checked the hourly weather forecast (via our new Zoleo satellite communicator) and confirmed our understanding that storms were on their way later in the day. Based on the forecast, we had about 6-8 hours before the front would hit. We weren’t setting any speed records in the Morningstar, but we decided we had plenty of time to make a return paddle before the weather turned if we needed to, so long as we got to work paddling. We fueled up with a couple slices of precooked-frozen bacon (is there a better travel snack?) and set off to the east end of the lake.

Along the way we noticed the cloudcover becoming thicker and grey-tinged, with some blue sky still sneaking through. We also noticed the winds shift. We were now headed straight into an east wind while the clouds above continued west to east. Stormy weather’s a comin’. An hour or so later, we came upon the third campsite (occupied), and as we continued on, we said a little prayer to the campsite gods that campsite number four would be open for us. And to our relief, it was!

We immediately noticed scat in the open area beyond the landing. No “scatology skills” here, but we examined it. It didn’t look particularly recent and though I know next to nothing about these things, it seemed way too small to be bear/moose and way too big to be a camp critter. Wolf maybe? Pics below, so maybe someone can help with the ID.

(I’ve seen great pics of wolves on this end of the lake taken by other folks on this board and was hoping we might see or hear one ourselves. But we never encountered anything other than our neighbor beaver whose home is just across the narrow lake from our campsite.)

Anyway, we oriented ourselves to our new home and set up our tent and tarps knowing they’d come in handy soon enough. We put our head nets to good use as the black flies and mosquitoes buzzed about. (We saw no evidence of a mayfly hatch here as there was on Hungry Jack a few miles away).

Josef assembled his casting rod and tied on a new floating Rapala I bought for the trip to make some casts while I organized camp. First cast and he caught a small perch! What a fun start to our fishing trip!

A few casts later that same Rapala found a new permanent home high in a tree along the shore. We did everything we could to bring it down, but it was simply too high and too stuck. Bummer to lose a new (and apparently productive) lure. Even more, it was a huge bummer to “leave a trace.” But we just couldn’t figure a way to retrieve the lure. We can only hope it eventually makes its way down somehow and gives some fishing joy to another angler, or if it doesn’t come down, that it remains hidden up there and doesn’t detract from anyone else’s wilderness experience. Dang it.

We were eager to jump in the canoe, explore and fish. We assembled our other rods and, for the first time in my life, I tied on a bottom bouncer and lindy rig with a leech and trailer. I have a ton of respect for you experienced fisher-people who do this regularly. Took me forever to get this thing sorted out. But I got it set up, we started trolling, and lo and behold the contraption works! We found a 13” walleye on our first pass around the rock pile in the middle of the lake just east of camp. Maybe could have kept it but didn’t. Josef and I caught several more small perch. Josef was jazzed. No big fish, no keepers, but no matter. This was already a successful fishing trip in Josef’s eyes, and so it was in mine, too.

We were all smiles when we heard far-off thunder. We decided to troll back to camp and noticed a beaver emerge from his house near our camp and start toward us. The beaver quickly became aware of us, gave us a tail slap, and dove. We caught some video of our beaver friend swimming away and Josef, not missing a beat, named him Justin. (“Justin Beaver”…ha).

More thunder. Still far off. No observable lighting. Nevertheless, we skedaddled ashore and stowed the canoe and fishing gear. Within a couple minutes, sprinkles, and Josef headed into the tent to read. Wasn’t more than a minute later and the heavens opened up with a deluge of rain lasting a solid ten minutes. Under our camp tarp, I stood in awe of 1. the powerful rain battering and gushing off our tarps and 2. the suddenness of the change in conditions, grateful we heeded the early warning signs, stuck close to camp, and were prepared to take cover. The rain eventually subsided, letting up to a gentle rain, and I joined Josef in the tent to relax a bit.

Later, despite the wet conditions, we manage to get a fire going in the fire grate (we were excited to use the homemade egg-carton/lint/wax fire starters we made for the trip) and prepared Josef’s chosen first night meal, hot dogs. I offered to prep a side of his favorite instant ramen but he had no room after downing his two dogs. We thought about some late-night bobber fishing from shore with our new lighted bobbers, but we were pooped.

It was a really good day. We were in. We were settled. And we were finally cool after a hot and sunny day that reached 80 degrees F.