Day 6: Fishing on Roy, Grandpa
Wednesday, June 11th, 2025
After yesterday’s epic day, I refuse to set a wake up alarm. After all, how could we possibly top yesterday? Even still, I rise around 6:30 and prepare for our departure from camp. We burnt up a lot of firewood last night, so we will need to gather more before we depart. We eat breakfast and head out to a nearby bay, where deep in the woods Andrew finds a downed jack pine that is perfectly seasoned. The worst part? It’s gigantic, and will require lots of work to saw and split into usable firewood. The best part? It’s gigantic, and will provide plenty of firewood for the rest of the week without requiring us to keep tromping around in the brush looking for more! I love sawing and splitting wood, and personally look forward to the challenge. One of the extra items I purchased for Andrew was another bow saw so he could join in the wood gathering chores. This is another purchase I’m very glad I made, because he gets to be included, learn firsthand about how to find and harvest quality firewood in the wilderness, and lessen my workload. After about 90 minutes, we have a solid crop of logs ready for splitting back at camp. But the splitting itself will have to wait, because we need to get to Roy for some fishing!

After dropping the logs off at camp, Andrew takes a latrine break and I take a brief nap break in the canoe at the landing. The early morning wake up combined with the long wood hogging session has me feeling weary, and we still have the whole day ahead of us! we hustle away to the Roy portage with the goal of catching smallmouth on top water lures on this gorgeous, mostly calm morning. While I don’t have any mishaps heaving the canoe onto my shoulders today, I am still taken aback by how exhausted I feel about halfway through the portage, so much so that I put the canoe down to take a short break, something I’ve rarely ever done. I think staying up too late last night plus a strenuous morning sawing firewood knocked me down a peg or two. Fortunately, Andrew does great carrying our day pack and soon we again reach our goal of Roy Lake, just in time for the late-morning winds to pick up, similar to yesterday.

Andrew throws the bluegill colored Choppo, while I try the small baby loon Whopper Plopper. Even in the wind, we are more successful than yesterday. We paddle the shore then periodically drop the anchor to cast a bit before moving on to another spot on the shore. Our best luck is found working the shoreline around the island in the northern part of the lake, and the Choppo generates more strikes than the Whopper Plopper in any size. Aside from one borderline fish which I choose to let go, we don’t catch many eating-sized fish, but nonetheless are having a blast. I’ve fished many times with Andrew, but never with steady top water action like this. On one pass around the island, I see a loon glide right underneath the canoe!
We take another short lunch break on the island to eat some underwhelming dehydrated meals and to contemplate our smallmouth ambush for the afternoon. After the lackluster lunch, neither of us are remotely excited to eat a dehydrated meal tonight. And the smallmouth are just easier to clean than the pike. With the pressure on, Andrew elects to try a new approach, tying on a soft plastic on a jig head. Considering the success yesterday, I tie on the purple Vibrax. We also decide to try the west shoreline of the lake since we haven’t done so yet. I get a bite or two, but no fish, and Andrew gets a snag or two and no bites. He quickly dials up another Z-man plastic Ned rig in coppertreuse with a gold blade, and immiediately picks up three fish. That’s all the convincing I need to tie on a Ned rig of my own in green pumpkin orange with a gold blade, and from that point, the bite was ON!
The afternoon winds have really picked up, meaning lots more paddling commands of “Dixon left/right” from the bow, but nothing can dampen our enthusiasm now. I lost multiple smaller fish due to using a barbless jig head, so I switched to a barbed jig head. After this experience, while in the BWCA, I still plan to crimp the barbs on all treble hooks because of how much trouble they can cause, but expect to fish a barbed hook on smaller single hooks to avoid losing fish. Also, in all the wind, we discover that dropping the anchor when a fish is on prevents getting blown all over the lake. Between the fast action, paddling in the wind, reeling in, dropping the anchor, and manning the net for each other, he and I are in constant motion, working as a team. Each fish we catch feels like we both caught it. Sometimes canoe fishing just feels like a lot more work than fishing from the shore. But when it’s all clicking and you get to work as a team like this, running and gunning up and down the lake, we can’t imagine a more fun way to fish.
While most of the fish are smaller, I manage to bring in a keeper near the southeast point of the lake. With time again ticking down, could we catch another and save supper tonight? We make a couple more passes down the shoreline, and Andrew catches the nicest fish of the day to clinch our fish fry! Both he and I feel as elated as watching a buzzer beater basketball victory as I net the smallmouth, and we both hoot and pump our fists in victory! What a feeling!

Andrew calls it quits on that last fish while we paddle back to shore, and I keep trolling. My final fish of the day is a beautiful 6” bass that brings my smallmouth total catch for the trip to 30. I clean the fish while Andrew readies the packs for our portage. We again have a smooth and happy portage back to Grandpa, and again, even though we are both tired, I tell Andrew that I can’t help but troll a bit on Grandpa since we are out here with the fishing gear.

Andrew again ties on the Firetiger Syclops and we decide to try the northwest bay of Grandpa for the first time. Andrew quickly caught one, then lost the lure, I think due a problem with his knot rather than getting bit off. Unfortunately this became a common refrain in the closing days of our trip that caused him a lot of frustration. But fortunately, we packed in plenty of tackle, so he was able to switch to an orange/black Syclops 3. After doing so well on the Firetiger, he wasn’t very optimistic, but that didn’t last long because he began positively slaying fish while trolling the north shore. I had a tough time fishing at all myself, because he couldn’t be stopped!
He quickly caught a 26” chunky pike that was the longest and heaviest of the trip. I put him on the stringer and then he caught a 25” pike that I also put on the stringer to supplement our meal of smallmouth tonight. Then he badly gill hooked a 22” “Grandpa special” that I was unable to save. That fish was chosen for the fry pan, and after a few photos, we set the other two free to grow another year. Both he and I felt good about doing so. Especially his big chunky pike was just too wonderful to kill. I’ve since learned that we should avoid holding these fish vertically for photos for their health, but I’m proud to report that we did not do so for long before releasing the fish which both quickly swam away.

I have an easier time filleting this pike, so maybe I’m learning how to better do it. I also spend 30-40 minutes splitting some of those gorgeous thick logs for our fire tonight. I’m always amazed at how splitting wood makes my back and shoulders feel especially tight. But that makes jumping off our rock at camp that night feel even more therapeutic. We again jump four times in celebration of yet another day that surpassed all expectations.

Always remember there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name.
~The Avett Brothers, “Murder in the City”
The fish feast with dessert, fried summer sausage and cheese is again the perfect ending to a perfect day. We have a side by side taste test and conclude that we slightly prefer smallmouth bass to pike, though both are delicious. But as we gaze into the embers with the beauty of the wilderness surrounding us, Andrew provides an unexpected surprise. “Dad,” he says, “This day has been the best yet from start to finish.” Not surprised by this, I tell him that while each day just keeps getting better, that won’t go on forever, but nonetheless, every wilderness day out here is very, very special. “You know Dad, I love catching fish and all the things that happened today have been amazing, but I think my favorite part of each day is this part. Just sitting here by the fire talking with you.” I don’t remember what I even said in response, though I know I was speechless for a bit. Likely I told him how much I loved him and how I have believed deeply since coming here that the wilderness, and this place in particular, was seemingly designed by the hand of God particularly for fathers and sons to spend time together, seeking a deeper relationship with each other.
My entire mission this year has been to craft the best possible wilderness fishing/canoeing/camping experience for Andrew. For him to be comfortable, to have fishing success, to be challenged, but for him to fall in love with Boundary Waters canoeing. While I of course went through all this work with the overarching goal of forging a strong relationship with him at a very formative time in his life, I never anticipated that he would realize his own joy at strengthening his relationship with me. This moment, on this day, is the peak of the peak, the tip of the spear, the single bright pinpoint of light where I know that every moment of preparation, expense, and sacrifice was worth it. That my steadfast belief in how this trip would help me grow closer to Andrew was not a mirage or a flight of fancy.
There is something spiritual about these campfires in the wilderness, about frying and eating the fish together over these campfires, as so many fellow travelers across the ages have done. These fires are where it at last becomes clear to us what all the challenges and adventures of the day were for. The wood that began the day as a dead down tree in a forgotten place is found, sawed, split, then burnt, providing comfort. The fish that was unseen in the lake as the day began is searched for, caught, cleaned, then cooked over that fire and consumed, providing nourishment. Both the wood and the fish began as the humblest of organisms many years before we came to be here. But at this very moment, the tree that began as a humble seed and the fish that began as a humble egg are simultaneously assumed into our human nature, and we humans are humbled by these unspeakably beautiful, undeserved gifts. In this act, more so than any other single act, we find answers to what brought us to this place and this moment.
Contemplating this great mystery, how we feel it was destiny to share this moment together in this time and place, is an instinct that was apparently embedded in mankind eons ago. While no one would describe this contemplation in the same way, nearly all would agree that there are few better places for meaningful, unhurried conversation, than a low, crackling campfire. What truly gets done around a campfire? Not much really. But how have these moments of close connection around such fires changed the course of relationships, families, of the entire course of history? How many men, who began a trip perhaps as mere acquaintances, have shared a campfire with their fellow man and known that from that point on they would always be connected to one another? How many men have gazed into a campfire while traveling alone, remembering their close friends and family that have passed on? How many times have the same men pondered how they can foster deeper connection with their family and friends of the present once they return to civilization? What is the real impact of those moments? I would argue that these moments have changed the world for the better in ways we cannot imagine.
When I look at this moment more closely, I have even more questions, and much more serious ones at that. How many more campfire nights do I have left to spend with Andrew in my life? How many more do I have left with him before he becomes a young man, and I an old man? How can I find these moments of connection with all of my kids, as much as possible, while there’s still time?
Our plan for tomorrow is to slow down a bit and just fish on Grandpa, so we both plan to SLEEP IN since we won’t be portaging over to Roy.

Stats—> Portages: 2 | Portage rods: 260 | Fish caught: 27 smallmouth, 8 pike | Lakes: Grandpa, Roy