As far as days in the wilderness goes, Tuesday was just one of those days where you take what you can get. Rain was forecast for much of the day and that’s what woke me up at 6:45. It rained lightly most of the morning until 10:00 or so, resulting in lots of time under the tarp. Curt and I fished near camp for a while in the late morning and caught a couple pike and bass, but otherwise it was a mostly low-key start to the day with some island exploration. Curt found an eagle feather up on the hill and I later found the eagle nest. We also found the Mio container that had mysteriously gone missing during dinner the night before, with a hole chewed in it by our resident camp red squirrel who must have needed the electrolyte boost. Two more toy soldiers were also discovered, bringing the squad up to 4 members.

We stayed in camp until about 2:00, then with a break in the weather, we headed to Toe Lake to try our luck fishing there. The portage was very muddy, extremely buggy and had sections with lots of poison ivy. In the back of my mind I just kept thinking, I hope this side-trip is worth it (it was). We knew it had gotten windier throughout the afternoon, but when we finished the portage from LLC to Toe, we were not expecting to see a white-capped and whipped up lake in front of us, but that's what it was. We decided to troll it anyway, and were rewarded with several upper 20's pike with good girth. We kept two for dinner and then headed back to Toy Soldier Island for a late dinner. We did catch a couple very nice walleye while trolling back to our camp (23 and 24"), but since we already had the 2 pike ready to eat, those walleye were quickly released.

After another long and late campfire, the sound of trilling toads, chirping tree frogs and wailing loons helped me drift off to a much needed night of sleep.