Crab Lake - First Solo
by Cricket67
Discovered this morning that I was actually getting a bit of signal on my phone when I tried to see if I could get a better forecast than the limited one I get on my InReach. Decided to surprise my wife with a quick phone call and let her know I was able to avoid the worst of the wind since I knew she would be worried when she checked the weather I was experiencing.
I knew the wind was likely going to be very strong again today – (14mph gusting to 30 by afternoon) so decided that this would be a layover day and I would not travel. Wind had switched to the NW overnight and was already blowing a bit even this early, so decided that if I was going to explore Boulder Lake I better do it earlier and not later. I headed out with my fishing gear and a bag of rocks for ballast and started exploring and fishing around the corners of Phantom making my way to the portage over to Boulder. Portage was a little difficult to find and it was further North that what seems like the logical place. This portage was quite overgrown and in places was a little hard to see but overall another pretty easy portage with the sloping hill on the Boulder side the only real challenge. Note that on my McKenzie map it showed only 16 rods, but it was in fact more like the 38 like on the BWCA.com maps.
As soon as I got into the canoe on Boulder I saw an Eagle fly by and a pair of Swans on the lake. I took my time and first explored the area where the Phantom Creek empties into the lake. I would guess that this waterway would be easily navigable with a little higher water. As it was I went back quite a ways before I came to a beaver dam. Would not have been very hard to get over that but knowing the wind was going to be coming up I didn’t want to go down that particular rabbit hole. I also noted how this creek might be the easiest way to get between Phantom and Boulder earlier in the year or with higher water levels. As I made my way around the lake I also checked out the NW corner where another water way seems to come into the lake. Noted that this whole side of the lake would be an excellent place to watch from Moose.
I then paddled back to the island and checked out the campsite. Was a very nice site and I took a few minutes to enjoy the view and stretch my legs. Was more protected that my Phantom site and had excellent Hammock spots. Tents spots were ok but they all seemed to be a bit sloped. Nice rocks to fish from or just to sit right by the water. The landing was decent.
Made my way back to Phantom and then drifted with the wind back to camp while tossing a Rapala to see what might bite. Caught a couple of small northerns before a third bigger one broke my line right at the side of my Canoe.
I made it back around 11:00 and with the wind picking up decided to switch over to my dry footware for the afternoon. Had a tortilla lunch and then fell asleep in the hammock while doing some reading. Woke up and decided a second lunch was in order. I had packed a couple of small Camp Chow single meals so had one of those. I decided to gather up some firewood in order to have a fire tonight and to make sure I left a good stockpile for the next visitors. I had no problem in this little used campsite finding plenty of dry wood of various sizes from kindling to small logs. I had borrowed a friends Agawa Boreal21 folding saw which I highly recommend.
Before having supper I took advantage of the slightly diminished winds to do a little more fishing and to scout the Portage into Battle that I would be taking the next morning. Caught one more small northern but nothing to write home about.
Had a wonderful evening with a small fire, another good meal, watched the sunset, and then sat and watched the stars slowly come out. Temp was prefect light jacket weather and mosquitoes were non-existent! Definitely took time to just enjoy the night sky for a good while before crawling into the hammock for the night.
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