Taking the Leap: Andrew’s First Trip
by YardstickAngler
Trip Type:
Paddling Canoe
Entry Date:
06/08/2025
Entry Point:
Saganaga Lake Only (EP 55A)
Exit Point:
Saganaga Lake Only (EP 55A)
Number of Days:
7
Group Size:
2
Discuss Trip:
View Discussion Thread (2 messages)
Part 9 of 12
Day 7: Fishing on Grandpa
Thursday, June 12th, 2025
Andrew and I both fulfill our goal of sleeping in a little this morning. After breakfast, we decide to put off sawing firewood until mid-day in order to take advantage of the morning bite on the lake.
With cooler, wetter weather on tap for tomorrow, this is likely the best fishing day we have left, so we tie on our favorites: Andrew the large orange Syclops, and I the medium orange Syclops. Unfortunately, Andrew has another knot failure and the lure is lost early in our fishing day. I offer to let him use my Syclops, but he refuses and takes this as a chance to try some of the other lures we brought. I also experiment with using a steel leader this morning, and have success with it, but I still seem to get more bites when using my standard fluorocarbon leader instead. I also realize that the long, skinny design of the Syclops virtually always keeps the sharp teeth of the pike well away from the line, preventing bite-offs.
While I’m getting plenty of bites this morning, Andrew is mostly striking out up front today. Even though I know he’s frustrated, he’s a good sport and truly seems to enjoy netting pike when I’m able to catch one. At one point, he decides to try a red/gold ¾ oz. Little Cleo, but has no luck. The Little Cleo is another one of those lures that has a loyal following as an excellent fishing lure, but I’ve never had any luck with it whatsoever. However, with the orange lures being hot this week, I tell him that perhaps the orange/silver Little Cleo will be the ticket to get him back to catching some fish. He’s willing to try just about anything at this point, so he ties it on and He drops it about a foot into the water to see the action before casting it out…and then…
From the stern, I see Andrew’s pole violently bend toward the water while he watches the lure. An instant later, he exclaims “Ooo!” Just as suddenly, the pole straightens and Andrew looks back at me with a shocked face, saying, “He took it and now he’s gone!” Apparently the Little Cleo is the latest victim of a knot failure, but I can’t do anything about it now except laugh at what I just witnessed. Andrew tells me that as he dropped the lure into the water to watch it, he thought to himself “Man, a fish would have to be so stupid to bite this shiny piece of metal with a gigantic undressed treble hook hanging from it.” Right at that moment, a large pike emerges from the depths, looks at the lure for half a second, then calmly inhales it and swims away. It happens so quickly, Andrew hardly has time to react except for his stunned exclamation of “Ooo!” Rather than become sullen, Andrew is a great sport and joins me in reliving the moment and laughing while he finds yet another lure to tie on. I lower the anchor bag so he can tie on, and then only half-jokingly tell him that while he’s up there goofing around with another lure, I’m going to catch that same fish with my Syclops. On the second cast, I indeed do catch a very respectable northern. He measures 27”, the longest of the trip thus far, albeit not quite as fat as Andrew’s gorgeous 26” fish was last night. While the Little Cleo is nowhere to be found, we are both convinced it is the same fish, and really consider it a fish we both caught. We are more than happy to release this fish, as this ridiculous sequence of events leading up to the catch is more valuable to us than another fish dinner today. While I’ve always heard there are perch in this lake, I’ve never seen one. But while anchored on this shoreline, we do witness multiple large schools of small perch darting about.
The bite starts to slow down with the warmth of the midday sun, and we begin to troll back to camp. We see a woman arrive at the portage landing from Roy, and she asks how the fishing has been. We pass on our intel from the week thus far, and tell her that the open site on the point is an excellent one. She and her husband have never been to this lake before, so I’m happy that they get to enjoy the airy site on the point tonight.
We drop off our fishing gear back at camp, have a leisurely lunch, and head to the big downed jack pine to harvest the last of the firewood for the week. We succeed in sawing up nearly all of the tree, which will provide more than enough firewood for us for the rest of our trip.
Maybe the wilds in our minds
Are the tides and deep rivers flowin’,
Feelin’ them real things,
They keep us around.
~Joe H Henry, “Real Things”
I am always surprised by how much energy I spend in the Boundary Waters on the simple act of sawing and splitting firewood. But I am even more surprised by how much enjoyment I glean from doing so. The act of searching for, splitting, and burning the best firewood I can find on these trips has taught me as much about these trees or more than any book I’ve read. Likewise, if one wanted to learn everything there is to know about lake trout, a great place to start would be to talk to a lake trout fisherman…and then go fishing. The joy is not only in the doing, but in the learning that comes from the doing. In learning through experience, I feel ever more connected to this, my favorite place on earth. While I’m still a novice in terms of just about everything related to traveling through canoe country, Andrew is a neophyte. I can only blather on so many times about the satisfaction that comes from a pile of perfectly dry and split firewood that I harvested with my own hands before it gets boring. When on these short wood gathering missions, Andrew and I saw logs until we are covered in sweat and sawdust. But as we work alongside each other in the woods, my passion for these woods rubs off on him, bonding us closer together.
While fire has impacted virtually every single lake in the Boundary Waters at some point in time, Grandpa and Roy Lakes have a particularly interesting back story that is told by the forest surrounding them. In this area of the Boundary Waters, both the Cavity and Ham Lake fires of 2006 and 2007 had a huge effect on many lakes due to the amount of acreage they both covered. While shoreline surrounding Roy and Grandpa was spared from both of these fires, both lakes were almost completely within the burn zone of the Romance Lake fire in the mid-1970’s. Jack Pine, due to pine cones that open up to release their seeds in a fire (seeds that can withstand extraordinarily high temperatures), is able to use the “blank slate” of a burn area to its advantage. After the fireweed, blueberries, birch, and other brushy tree species make their mark, the Jack Pines seeded during the fire begin to tower above the burn. Since they all germinated at about the same time due to the stimulus of the fire, they are all nearly the same size. Similar to the numerous similar sized “Grandpa special” 21” northern pike, 50-70 foot tall ramrod-straight Jack Pines are a tradmark of Grandpa and Roy Lakes. We also found a stand or two of healthy birch trees on Grandpa. But as much as I love finding dry cedar wood for the campfire, they are extremely hard to come by on these lakes. My favorite Boundary Waters tree is the White Pine, and we only see one White Pine survivor of the fire during our entire week on Grandpa and Roy. All of that to say, as much as we enjoy sawing, splitting, and burning Jack Pine, I look forward to showing Andrew the joy freshly split, aromatic cedar on future trips!
As we paddle by the campsite on the point, the couple camped there calls out to us and starts a conversation, sharing that this is the woman’s first Boundary Waters trip, and the man’s first trip since coming here with his dad for five years in the late 70’s (Considering the fire history discussed above, imagine what Grandpa Lake looked like then!). He says the park is still just as he remembered it back then. He and his wife have been camping on Red Rock fishing this week, and have had zero luck, aside from a smallmouth that she caught from the portage landing here on Grandpa. We share as much fishing intel as we can, while admitting that the bite has slowed down a bit for us today compared to earlier in the week. I briefly share some details of our trip, and it makes the man’s day to see another father taking his son into the wilderness for a week. It makes my day too!
This evening session turns out to be the slowest fishing of the week. It feels like a cool front has passed, because it’s about 7-8 degrees cooler tonight. I pass the quiet time on the water quietly singing a couple oldies songs that I don’t quite know the words to (“Reflections of My Life” by Marmalade and “You Are Everything” by The Stylistics), but I can tell Andrew is a bit worn down from being on the water fishing most of the day but not catching any fish. With the slow fishing, we even take the time to land the canoe to discover a large stand of birch in the forest and to fill my pockets with their bark that litters the forest floor here. I then tell him that he needs to fish with my orange Syclops and that we are going to do so until he catches something. It takes a fair amount of paddling, and we even explore a few bays of the lake that we haven’t tried before, but he does eventually catch a fish. We see our friends from the other campsite out fishing too, but never do hear if they succeeded in catching a fish. After our discussion, I told Andrew I probably should have just given them our sole remaining orange Syclops, but I didn’t think of it at the moment.
Andrew is more relieved than excited about the “Grandpa special” he caught, and after releasing him we head back to camp for a leisurely night by the fire. I split the remainder of the Jack Pine logs as Andrew preps for supper. Today is the first day of the trip that isn’t “Even better than yesterday!” Sensing the low energy, I turn on a TumbleHome podcast as we go about our camp chores, taking some time to carefully place a few more flat rocks in just the right places near the fire grate for our camp kitchen. Soon enough Andrew and I are both laughing about another round of the “Lurenament” hosted by Erik and Adam. No rock jumping tonight, just peaceful enjoyment of the lake and each other’s company by the fire, still laughing about the big pike that stole Andrew’s Little Cleo. I’m way behind on my journaling, so Andrew and I spend an hour taking notes on all the happenings of the past few days for this trip report. All too soon, darkness settles on the lake and we again retire to our hammocks vowing to sleep in tomorrow.
Thursday, June 12th, 2025
Andrew and I both fulfill our goal of sleeping in a little this morning. After breakfast, we decide to put off sawing firewood until mid-day in order to take advantage of the morning bite on the lake.
With cooler, wetter weather on tap for tomorrow, this is likely the best fishing day we have left, so we tie on our favorites: Andrew the large orange Syclops, and I the medium orange Syclops. Unfortunately, Andrew has another knot failure and the lure is lost early in our fishing day. I offer to let him use my Syclops, but he refuses and takes this as a chance to try some of the other lures we brought. I also experiment with using a steel leader this morning, and have success with it, but I still seem to get more bites when using my standard fluorocarbon leader instead. I also realize that the long, skinny design of the Syclops virtually always keeps the sharp teeth of the pike well away from the line, preventing bite-offs.
While I’m getting plenty of bites this morning, Andrew is mostly striking out up front today. Even though I know he’s frustrated, he’s a good sport and truly seems to enjoy netting pike when I’m able to catch one. At one point, he decides to try a red/gold ¾ oz. Little Cleo, but has no luck. The Little Cleo is another one of those lures that has a loyal following as an excellent fishing lure, but I’ve never had any luck with it whatsoever. However, with the orange lures being hot this week, I tell him that perhaps the orange/silver Little Cleo will be the ticket to get him back to catching some fish. He’s willing to try just about anything at this point, so he ties it on and He drops it about a foot into the water to see the action before casting it out…and then…
From the stern, I see Andrew’s pole violently bend toward the water while he watches the lure. An instant later, he exclaims “Ooo!” Just as suddenly, the pole straightens and Andrew looks back at me with a shocked face, saying, “He took it and now he’s gone!” Apparently the Little Cleo is the latest victim of a knot failure, but I can’t do anything about it now except laugh at what I just witnessed. Andrew tells me that as he dropped the lure into the water to watch it, he thought to himself “Man, a fish would have to be so stupid to bite this shiny piece of metal with a gigantic undressed treble hook hanging from it.” Right at that moment, a large pike emerges from the depths, looks at the lure for half a second, then calmly inhales it and swims away. It happens so quickly, Andrew hardly has time to react except for his stunned exclamation of “Ooo!” Rather than become sullen, Andrew is a great sport and joins me in reliving the moment and laughing while he finds yet another lure to tie on. I lower the anchor bag so he can tie on, and then only half-jokingly tell him that while he’s up there goofing around with another lure, I’m going to catch that same fish with my Syclops. On the second cast, I indeed do catch a very respectable northern. He measures 27”, the longest of the trip thus far, albeit not quite as fat as Andrew’s gorgeous 26” fish was last night. While the Little Cleo is nowhere to be found, we are both convinced it is the same fish, and really consider it a fish we both caught. We are more than happy to release this fish, as this ridiculous sequence of events leading up to the catch is more valuable to us than another fish dinner today. While I’ve always heard there are perch in this lake, I’ve never seen one. But while anchored on this shoreline, we do witness multiple large schools of small perch darting about.
After our days catching feisty smallmouth bass out of Roy, Andrew and I both kept saying that the smallmouth may be our favorite fish to catch, especially when considering the ease of cleaning them. But as we keep finding ourselves laughing about the temperament of the pike that appeared from nowhere to terrorize Andrew’s Little Cleo, we know for certain…while it may be the most maligned fish species of canoe country, Andrew and I love catching northern pike more than any other fish.
The bite starts to slow down with the warmth of the midday sun, and we begin to troll back to camp. We see a woman arrive at the portage landing from Roy, and she asks how the fishing has been. We pass on our intel from the week thus far, and tell her that the open site on the point is an excellent one. She and her husband have never been to this lake before, so I’m happy that they get to enjoy the airy site on the point tonight.
We drop off our fishing gear back at camp, have a leisurely lunch, and head to the big downed jack pine to harvest the last of the firewood for the week. We succeed in sawing up nearly all of the tree, which will provide more than enough firewood for us for the rest of our trip.
Maybe the wilds in our minds
Are the tides and deep rivers flowin’,
Feelin’ them real things,
They keep us around.
~Joe H Henry, “Real Things”
I am always surprised by how much energy I spend in the Boundary Waters on the simple act of sawing and splitting firewood. But I am even more surprised by how much enjoyment I glean from doing so. The act of searching for, splitting, and burning the best firewood I can find on these trips has taught me as much about these trees or more than any book I’ve read. Likewise, if one wanted to learn everything there is to know about lake trout, a great place to start would be to talk to a lake trout fisherman…and then go fishing. The joy is not only in the doing, but in the learning that comes from the doing. In learning through experience, I feel ever more connected to this, my favorite place on earth. While I’m still a novice in terms of just about everything related to traveling through canoe country, Andrew is a neophyte. I can only blather on so many times about the satisfaction that comes from a pile of perfectly dry and split firewood that I harvested with my own hands before it gets boring. When on these short wood gathering missions, Andrew and I saw logs until we are covered in sweat and sawdust. But as we work alongside each other in the woods, my passion for these woods rubs off on him, bonding us closer together.
While fire has impacted virtually every single lake in the Boundary Waters at some point in time, Grandpa and Roy Lakes have a particularly interesting back story that is told by the forest surrounding them. In this area of the Boundary Waters, both the Cavity and Ham Lake fires of 2006 and 2007 had a huge effect on many lakes due to the amount of acreage they both covered. While shoreline surrounding Roy and Grandpa was spared from both of these fires, both lakes were almost completely within the burn zone of the Romance Lake fire in the mid-1970’s. Jack Pine, due to pine cones that open up to release their seeds in a fire (seeds that can withstand extraordinarily high temperatures), is able to use the “blank slate” of a burn area to its advantage. After the fireweed, blueberries, birch, and other brushy tree species make their mark, the Jack Pines seeded during the fire begin to tower above the burn. Since they all germinated at about the same time due to the stimulus of the fire, they are all nearly the same size. Similar to the numerous similar sized “Grandpa special” 21” northern pike, 50-70 foot tall ramrod-straight Jack Pines are a tradmark of Grandpa and Roy Lakes. We also found a stand or two of healthy birch trees on Grandpa. But as much as I love finding dry cedar wood for the campfire, they are extremely hard to come by on these lakes. My favorite Boundary Waters tree is the White Pine, and we only see one White Pine survivor of the fire during our entire week on Grandpa and Roy. All of that to say, as much as we enjoy sawing, splitting, and burning Jack Pine, I look forward to showing Andrew the joy freshly split, aromatic cedar on future trips!
The late afternoon is cool with light winds, and we head out for more fishing.
As we paddle by the campsite on the point, the couple camped there calls out to us and starts a conversation, sharing that this is the woman’s first Boundary Waters trip, and the man’s first trip since coming here with his dad for five years in the late 70’s (Considering the fire history discussed above, imagine what Grandpa Lake looked like then!). He says the park is still just as he remembered it back then. He and his wife have been camping on Red Rock fishing this week, and have had zero luck, aside from a smallmouth that she caught from the portage landing here on Grandpa. We share as much fishing intel as we can, while admitting that the bite has slowed down a bit for us today compared to earlier in the week. I briefly share some details of our trip, and it makes the man’s day to see another father taking his son into the wilderness for a week. It makes my day too!
This evening session turns out to be the slowest fishing of the week. It feels like a cool front has passed, because it’s about 7-8 degrees cooler tonight. I pass the quiet time on the water quietly singing a couple oldies songs that I don’t quite know the words to (“Reflections of My Life” by Marmalade and “You Are Everything” by The Stylistics), but I can tell Andrew is a bit worn down from being on the water fishing most of the day but not catching any fish. With the slow fishing, we even take the time to land the canoe to discover a large stand of birch in the forest and to fill my pockets with their bark that litters the forest floor here. I then tell him that he needs to fish with my orange Syclops and that we are going to do so until he catches something. It takes a fair amount of paddling, and we even explore a few bays of the lake that we haven’t tried before, but he does eventually catch a fish. We see our friends from the other campsite out fishing too, but never do hear if they succeeded in catching a fish. After our discussion, I told Andrew I probably should have just given them our sole remaining orange Syclops, but I didn’t think of it at the moment.
Andrew is more relieved than excited about the “Grandpa special” he caught, and after releasing him we head back to camp for a leisurely night by the fire. I split the remainder of the Jack Pine logs as Andrew preps for supper. Today is the first day of the trip that isn’t “Even better than yesterday!” Sensing the low energy, I turn on a TumbleHome podcast as we go about our camp chores, taking some time to carefully place a few more flat rocks in just the right places near the fire grate for our camp kitchen. Soon enough Andrew and I are both laughing about another round of the “Lurenament” hosted by Erik and Adam. No rock jumping tonight, just peaceful enjoyment of the lake and each other’s company by the fire, still laughing about the big pike that stole Andrew’s Little Cleo. I’m way behind on my journaling, so Andrew and I spend an hour taking notes on all the happenings of the past few days for this trip report. All too soon, darkness settles on the lake and we again retire to our hammocks vowing to sleep in tomorrow.
Stats—> Portages: 0 | Fish caught: 11 pike | Lakes: Grandpa
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