We woke up to light rain and laid in the tent for a few min, I was considering do we go out today if it is going to rain the whole day, but didn’t mention to Chris. I decided to go out and get down the food, and decided to throw a few casts from shore, no bites but the fish were jumping. The lake was glass after the windy day before. The rain stopped but it was still dark and overcast. We made oatmeal and bacon for breakfast, and decided to go out fishing. We started to troll to our same spot we fished at yesterday, and Chris caught a nice 19” walleye on sprinkles. He asked if we wanted to keep it to eat. I told him I’d rather put it on a stringer at camp, rather than drag him around all day, so we went back toward camp, put it on a stringer, and headed back out to our fishing spot.

We fished off the peninsula and used the rest of the leeches we had spared to the last day. We kept getting bites but couldn’t land any of the fish. When all the leeches were gone, we switched to jigging raps and caught 6 walleye pretty quickly. We fished for awhile and decided to take 3 walleye (not knowing if a turtle might have got our other walleye) back to camp at about 10am for a fish brunch. We cleaned and cooked the fish, and our fuel container ran out after the frying the first batch of fish. We didn’t want to open our back up fuel canister so we made a fire cooked the rest of the fish, ate, relaxed and did dishes.

We were back on the water before noon, with the intent to fish and explore the rest of the lake. We trolled across the lake and saw one group camping on the West side of the lake close to the Dahlgren River portage (1824). We went and walked to portage to the Dahlgren river, saw the little water fall. All would be cool in the spring but underwhelming in late summer. We did see a pile of USFS fire grates and one set up almost like a grill. Not sure if the USFS left them there or if it was from people vandalizing campsites…. Hoping the first. We ate 2nd lunch while walking back on the portage (beef stick, protein bar, pay day)

We continued our exploration and paddled to the island campsite on the south side of the lake (1825), we got out checked it out it was a decent campsite and considered moving as it was closer to our portage, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort to move. We kept moving picking up a fish here and there. We stopped to fish a spot or two as we saw some fish, and I picked up a few more fish on the jigging rap.

We went to check out the Stuart River portage we had came out of day one, to go see the falls there. It was just a trickle. On the way over we noticed a big rock cliff/clearing looking over the lake. We decided to go for a climb and see if we could get to the top of the overlook. We bushwacked our way to the top, saw some more moose poop, and found a great view overlooking the lake. Took some pictures, and headed back toward camp, fishing our way back picking up one more walleye.

We went back to camp to relax. The sun started to poke through the clouds, the rocks were drying up, and it was turning into a really nice day. To the point we were able to enjoy the sunshine from camp shirtless.

We ate dinner (tuna packet, crackers, fig bar, trail mix) with no dishes after doing fish for brunch!! Then decided to head out one last time to go fishing as the sun was starting to set on our last night. I picked up 4 more walleye on the jigging rap, and Chris was getting a bit frustrated as he hadn’t caught any fish since early morning. But I had to remind him he caught the biggest walleye on this lake today/ biggest walleye for the trip/ and the biggest pike of the trip…. I think that helped. He kept telling me, fishing really is a lot of fun when you actually catch fish, lol!

We headed back to camp, packed up, had a big fire, I ate the BP Crème Brule for dessert, Chris saved his Payday. We got one last clear night to see the stars. The landing where the canoe was, was a great place to lay down and see the stars, and we got to faintly see the milky way (but noted if I ever get Chris to go to BWCA again, I have to take him during a New Moon!).

Campsite Rating 1828 (3.5*) – The site had a good landing to pull multiple the canoes up on, but would likely be underwater earlier in the year. The fire grate was nice, but the seating and positioning of the fire grate was weird. It was angled oddly. The view from the fire seating wasn’t the best their were some trees blocking the view of the lake. I liked the 1 tent pad we had, others looked to have also camped on the flat rock face by the canoe landing, second tent pad not the greatest. The bear hang was another good one for the two of us with little food left, but the branch we used might not have held a larger food pack. The trails from camp lead to the next peninsula point that we fished at and cleaned fished at. Someone looks to have camped here in the past, there was a small fire ring and rocks like they had camped there (it is on an old map as an old campsite, but maybe it’s used by hikers, as the hiking trail goes close by this point/campsite I’d give this site 1.5*). We didn’t go up onto the campsite on the point across from us (1823 NW on the north bay), but I’m not sure if any of the other sites on this lake are much better than this one.

Fish Total – Walleye (18), Pike (2)