-Upper 70s, mostly Sunny. Some clouds in the middle of the day on both ends of a 3-hour rain shower. Some wind on both ends of the front as well but mild the rest of the day.

- We woke up to a beautiful boundary waters morning. Can’t beat waking up in God’s beautiful creation with friends and family and chasing wilderness game fish all day. We had some breakfast and went out fishing for the morning. We ran into our camp neighbors who were friendly and talkative and shared some of their fishing successes from the last couple days (they were headed out later that day). They shared that they had been doing well for walleyes and gave us a couple spots to try. We did fish their spots a little over the next couple days but only picked up a few small walleyes. We found much better spots on our own. (More to come on that later). Over the couple hour morning session, we managed a couple small walleyes and a few Smallmouth bass as well, but it was pretty calm and very sunny. For those of you that don’t know the South Arm of Knife Lake is a very clear body of water and a little wind our clouds tend to help fishing. As we were finishing our morning of fishing the wind was starting to pick up some and the clouds were starting to roll in. We got some lunch quick and could hear Thunder in the distance. We dove for our tents as it started to rain and got some rest during the hardest rain.

We were not sure how long the rain would last as we do not have a weather radio (I have been thinking about getting one, I’d be curious to see on this forum people’s thoughts on them and feel it would be a very nice tool. I am sure there are threads on the topic I can find). Our group goes to the Boundary Waters for the fishing some we could not stand not fishing any longer and braved the clouds and rain and headed out fishing. My brother and I had stayed at an awesome campsite in 2010 and done extremely well slip bobber fishing right from camp so decided to go fish out from there to start. Brad and I headed down that way and the other group caught up about 15 minutes later. Brad and I set up or poles and cast them out towards the underwater structure/ledge out from the campsite. We caught a few fish and Brad landed a nice smallie right as our buddies came around the corner to join us, with them remarking that was a great sign. It was still raining pretty good with a little bit of wind but nothing too bad. Over the next hour between the two canoes, I canoes I would guess we caught around 30-40 walleye and several Smallmouth. The average size for walleyes was mild with them running from 10-16” for the most part but it was good action. A couple of them were between 16 and 20” but definitely a smaller year class overall. As the rain quit, and the sun came out the fast and furious feeding subsided and the bite shut off quickly.

It was still only midafternoon, so my brother and I paddled across the way to fish some shoreline structure, underwater points, and a bay we had done well at in the past. We found some great structure and caught some very nice Smallmouth bass. We could see a bunch of big fish swimming 10-15 feet down below us as well which was cool. We took note of the structure and got a lay of the land some. (More to come on this location later, specifics of the structure and how we fished it one evening). For the afternoon bite my brother and I caught around 20 Smallmouth bass with 3 of them being over 20” with my brother catching a 21.5” brute. Probably one of the cooler fish catches I have witnessed. Story as follows…

On our way back to camp from fishing the above locations there are a couple islands we have caught fish on in the past. As we pull up to stretch our legs in the shallows between the islands, we see a big bass dart off. We pull the canoe up and grab our rods to walk around a bit and stretch our legs and do some brief fishing. I caught a 19” smallmouth in the shallows and as I was landing it Brad hooks one as well and yells that it’s the big one, we had seen. However, a couple seconds later he yells in frustration as it shakes his hook. We fish a little longer and Brad sneaks around his island and says he can see the big bass again. We realize that it must be on a bed or think that it is still protecting a nest stalks this fish for some reason. I watch as my brother stalks this fish like he is spotting and stalking a buck archery hunting with his head just barley poking over the crest of the island. The fish takes a couple more swipes at his lure but it must just be grabbing the plastic. Brad sneaks down for a little better angle and finally hooks the big Smallmouth bass after a couple more casts. The following is one of the craziest battles with a fish I have seen. The water is only a couple feet deep, and the fish goes berserk once it knows it is hooked. I grab the net and wade out into the water to help land this fish. We put the tape to a 21.5” Smallie that my brother states is likely his 2nd or 3rd biggest Smallmouth ever. We snap a couple of quick pictures and release her back quickly. It was one of the coolest fish catches I have seen from start to finish with the whole sequence. He was very lucky the fish gave him 5 chances. Hah.

We head back to camp feeling accomplished with some good action for our main two target species (Walleye and Smallmouth). We tidy up camp some and relax a little at camp while a couple guys whip up some supper. I cast out a slip bobber again and caught several Smallmouth again in a short period of time. We ate our supper and headed out for another evening of fishing. Zack and Tyler has found a small underwater 18ft hump out closer to deep water with their electronics earlier in the day so they elected to go anchor on that structure and slip bobber it for the evening. Brad and I trolled some shoreline structure and tapering off points and breaks. We picked up some eater walleyes but did not seem to find any sort of concentration of them. We worked our way back towards camp and paddled by Zack and Tyler. They shared that they caught a couple nice Smallmouth bass and Walleye on their piece of structure. We elected to slip bobber for the final hour at a pinch point/ neck down area that comes up to 15 feet with some scattered boulders. This turned out to be a good decision with us catching over 20 Walleyes with a couple in the low 20s. As the moon was starting to rise, I hook a big fish and was hoping for a big Walleye. However, it turned out to be the 4th 20+ Smallie of the trip so can’t complain about that. Tyler and Zack hear us catching fish (their spot had good quality but was not too much action) and join us for a bit before we all head into camp. They caught several as well. We did fish with light up slip bobbers for the last half hour or so. Gotta love that light disappearing into the dark water. We finished a great fishing day with hot drinks and some adult beverages around the fire. This was the fishing day we had anticipated and looked forward to so much and why we love the Boundary Waters so much. We looked forward to hopefully replicating it gain a couple times before we had to go home.