Monday - Fishing around camp and Bottle Rapids
This trip was the first time I brought along a fish finder. I picked up a Garmin Striker Vivid 4CV based on some videos and a recommendation from Eric at Piragis. I used a Ram mount system to camp the monitor to the thwart. Then I used a fishing magnet to secure the transducer to the side of the canoe with a bracket my buddy fabricated and painted with rubberized coating. It worked like a charm and the entire setup including a 12v 15Ah battery weighs just over 6 lbs. I am not an avid angler but just hoping to improve my odds of walleye for dinner.
The next day we made coffee and hit the water for a short fishing trip around our island. Caught a few Pike. Back to camp for a full breakfast of hashbrowns, bacon and eggs and then we set out for some Walleye jigging near the bottle rapids. I have since come to learn that 'marking' fish and catching them are two completely different things. We used a mesh anchor bag to hold us in good places despite a steady breeze but couldn't get any fish in the canoe. As we paddled back into camp in the afternoon the wind picked up and started gusting up to 25mph. After a hard first day of travel, we were content to crack into the whiskey supply and plan our next days adventure.
The original plan was a day-trip to Iron lake. However, the weather report showed increasing winds from the SE which would make the travel to Iron a bit more laborious than we wanted. The revised plan was to break camp early the next morning and fish our way north. Our goal was to land at one of the sites near the entrance to Pocket Creek.