Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Saganaga-Mack-Kawnipi-Falls Chain and Deep Thoughts
by pcallies

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 06/20/2023
Entry & Exit Point: Quetico
Number of Days: 8
Group Size: 2
Day 7 of 8
Monday, June 26, 2023

* No rain overnight but everything was still wet or damp.

* Left camp at 9:20 and we were fishing on Saganagons at 11:50 after crossing our remaining four portages, including Dead Man's Portage.

* The lengths listed for most of these portages seem inaccurate. Some are shorter than listed; others are longer than listed.

* My wife took a hard fall trying to work her way across the large slippery rock face on Dead Man's Portage, the last portage of the day. I had to shove the canoe up this rock and pick it up again on top. I'm not sure why the portage crew doesn't move this portage one way or the other for safety reasons.

* My wife caught one small smallie and we caught several decent size Northerns. The largest of the Northerns inhaled her Wally diver all the way into its gills. I tried to get it with the hookout but the hookout was barely long enough to get to the hook and I couldn’t see well enough to get it. We thought about releasing the fish with the lure in it, but we couldn’t imagine it being able to survive with it. Plus I had the fish in the boat for quite awhile by this time. Although the fish might have been larger than allowed, we decided to keep it for dinner. I cleaned the fish and ended up retrieving the lure through the gill plate. I’m not sure if a ranger would have penalized us for the letter of the law relating to the size of the fish or praised us for making the best of a bad situation. Regardless, he probably would have encouraged us not to fish with treble hooks.

* We ended up cooking half of the fish and sinking the other half in deep water.