Friday, July 02, 2021 The Spider and Bird site. The birds woke us up early, about 4:30. A series of different kinds of birds came through with different songs the last were crows. Dan got out of the tent and a bald eagle took off from the tree next to the tent. We started noticing there were an assortment of different spiders everywhere. One even formed an egg case on our water filter. There was a lot of evidence of borers and it looked like someone had been through taking out diseased trees. That may have attracted both the birds and the spiders. There's also what looks like a lot of old ice fishing equipment hanging in trees around camp. An auger, spoon, bait bucket. It looks like it has been used as an ice fishing winter camp. There's a winter trail that comes into Thomas nearby.
We got up and made pancakes and lil smokies, Coffee/ tea then cleaned up and decided to take a day trip to Kiana to see if it was worth moving there. We took hung up the food bags, packed our personal bags and fishing gear and took the 25 R portage to Kiana. We couldn't find the closest campsite. We paddled across to the find the other site. We were fishing along the shore and finally saw the opening to the site. We got out and looked around. It barely has an opening to the lake and there are no sitting logs. It's very enclosed by bushes and only has one potential tent pad a little way from the firegrate. I can see it being ok if it is cold and windy and you have chairs. Otherwise, I'd pass. We fished back to the portage and we think we saw the opening to the other site but decided not to try to paddle back to it since it didn't have good lake access either. Our little misfortune the day before may have saved us a lot of grief. We went back to Thomas and fished near the portage and on the way back to camp. No luck. It was still hot and sunny. It's a really pretty little lake and is supposed to have a lot of big pike, but no walleye. It would have been a good lake if we felt more crowded. We got back and had PB& J sandwiches. Did camp chores and took showers to cool off. Had chicken tacos with FD chicken, rehydrated charro beans and spanish rice for dinner. The chicken was ok, not the best application. Biscotti for dessert. Too hot for cocoa or to enjoy a fire. Got bear bags up. and went to bed after dark. Some mosquitoes, but not too bad.
Thomas 31 R Kiana 31R Thomas. 1.7 miles total 1.4 miles paddling, .3 miles portaging.