Thursday - Travel to Oyster Lake
We had coffee and breakfast bars while we broke camp and managed to hit the water just after 8:00. The mirror-calm waters and foggy conditions were breathtaking! We caught up to the solo paddler at the portage into Pocket Creek and had a nice chat. She also commented about the poor condition of the campsites. Someone had tossed leftover spaghetti on the ground at the site she stayed at the night before. She was heading for pocket lake or finger lake in hopes of finding more solitude and sites with less wear and tear.
We encountered a large beaver dam just after turning south on the south fork of pocket creek. There must have been at least 3 feet of difference in the water height. The paddle south on pocket was peaceful. We startled up two trumpeter swans that flew over us. We also kept startling a great blue heron that would only fly a few hundred feet ahead of us so we could do it all over again. He kept that up all the way to the portage into Ge-be-on-e-quet Lake. Green Lake and Rocky Lake are both hidden gems that I would love to spend a night or two on, but our goal was lake trout so we kept paddling for Oyster.
We were hoping for the Isthmus site on Oyster and were lucky that it was open. It was about noon when we started to setup camp. After some hard salami, cheese and crackers for lunch, we setup camp and decided to brave the winds and make our first attempt at lake trout. The winds were North-Northeast so we paddled up and drifted back with some heavy Rapala jigs. Our day of travel had worn us out, so we headed back to camp after only a few passes. We were spoiled again by the isthmus site because we could use the landing on the east side. This side is a much tricker landing but it's nice to avoid what would be a mile of paddling back around the peninsula.
We settled in for the day with some dinner, whiskey, cribbage and a campfire.