Sunday, September 07, 2025
Finally, a night that the temps "only" got down into the upper 30's! I went back to the rapids in the early morning as soon as I woke, but only one 12" SMB had any interest today, so I headed back to camp, made breakfast and packed up to head north. My trip through Alice was slow with a north wind in my face, but I knew today was a short travel day and didn't mind. The long skinny arm of Alice was more like paddling a remote river and passed quickly. Cacabic was mostly lily pad covered, but was a pretty stopover point before hitting the bigger waters on Thomas. The portage between Cacabic and Thomas again decided to throw a curveball at me. There are 2 sections that are completely underwater, flooded between knee and upper-thigh deep. I did not take the time to float these, instead slowly walking through with my gear. The bottom is hard packed, so as long as you avoid the larger rocks and logs, it's not a bad walk, just cold. As soon as I reached Thomas, i started the search for an open campsite. The first 3 I checked were full and the next 2 I checked were not something I wanted to use, so I settled on what turned out to be a great site on a point just outside the bay that leads to Kiana Lake (site 1391). When the sun finally came out just before lunch, it was the first time on the entire trip that I truly felt warm while outside, and temps pushed up near 60 that afternoon. I did try some early afternoon trolling in the areas south and east of my site, but despite over 60 gulls hanging out in that area consistently grabbing bait fish off the surface, I had no luck. Around 3:00 the clouds returned, and shortly after I headed back out to the lake, trolling an almost 4 mile route E/NE from my site until I finally hooked into a nice fish- a 26" lake trout, my first ever in the Boundary Waters. I photographed and quickly released the fish to the depths and returned to my camp elated at the experience. Bucket list item finally checked off after many many previous failed attempts over the last few years! I finished the day with a nice campfire and a beautiful view of the now full moon. What an end to an ideal September day in the Boundary Waters! Lakes traveled- Alice, Cacabic, Thomas