While planning for a longer visit to Sylvania, we had decided that we would do several day trip loops to fill up our days. We woke up around 7:00, had some quick breakfast and headed out on the first of our loops. The plan was to loop through Florence, Big Bateau, Cub, and Deer Island lakes, and try to catch some fish on each of them, even though we had never been on the first 3 lakes of that loop.

Each lake on this loop was entirely different from the others, which made the experience all that more enjoyable. First up- Florence Lake. The portage from Loon ended at a mucky and boggy landing, which required a little extra attention from both Jaden and I so we didn't up up knee deep in the smelly stuff. Florence is the blackest bog stained water I have ever seen, so dark that a white spinnerbait completely disappeared less than 8" below the surface, with everything else below completely concealed in a shroud of darkness. If monsters of the deep exist, we imagined that Florence Lake would be a likely place for one to call home.

We soon decided that we would rather spend time on lakes of the loop where monsters weren't likely swimming below us plotting our demise, and headed over to Big Bateau. BB is a beautiful lake, with clear water, multiple islands, and some mid lake grassy humps that quickly caught our attention and snapped us back to fishing mode. The wind had picked up just enough that we found it best to drift fish the mid-lake areas, and we were rewarded with several nice fish including a huge bluegill on a spinnerbait, and several very nice smallmouth. Big Bateau is right on the Michigan/WI border, with a couple homes or cottages on the south side of the lake, but we did not see or hear another person while we were there. This much more lightly travelled area was well worth the effort to reach for the tranquility alone. The solid fishing was just a bonus.

With the wind continuing to pick up, we decided to leave BB and head over to the much smaller Cub Lake, hoping to some places to fish shoreline. The portage from BB to Cub is short and easy, but finding the entrance to the portage through all the small trees in the water along the shoreline on the Cub side could make it easy to miss if we had been looping in the opposite direction. As soon as we hit the water on Cub, we starting catching largemouth bass. We didn't get anything of any size, but were rewarded on nearly every cast with either a caught fish, a strike and miss, or a follow. I'm sure there are larger bass in there, but if all Cub wants to be is an "action" lake for 10-13" largemouth bass, that was just fine with us.

The final lake on our loop was Deer Island Lake, a lake on which we had amazing fishing results during past trips. While it was quite windy, we were rewarded for our efforts with some huge smallmouth bass on mid lake structure. On a whim, Jaden busted out the senkos for this lake, which turned out to be key for the larger fish and provided some of his biggest smiles of the day. We fished, explored, paddled, and fished some more, until our bodies (and bellies!) were aching enough to not want to keep fighting the fish or the wind any longer.

We headed back to Loon Lake, arriving at camp around 4:00, tired and happy from our day trip. We went into full relaxation mode and allowed ourselves to drift into that magical wilderness trance, where time passes but you can't remember what you did, only that you were content while doing it. Later in the evening, as the last of the flames danced around the fire pit and stars dotted the sky far above the rustling leaves, the wailing sounds of loons and the raucous hoots of barred owls filled the air. As I sat in silence trying to ponder what tomorrow might bring, the only thoughts filling my head were that this had been a truly special day. Fair enough, tomorrow could wait until it arrived.