Agnes, Kawnipi, Kashapiwi loop
by Journeyman
We could usually hear them before we could see them, waterfalls entering the lake through cliffs and bluffs.
It was interesting to see what looked like a small creek on the map looked like up close. We made a point to stop and explore some of those. Nearby we found a nice hidden campsite (not on the map) it rested behind a bluff out of site from the lake, and had lunch. The three short portages that lay ahead were even worse than yesterdays. At the end of each one we paddled with much determination to escape the swarm of mosquitoes. Once on Kawnipi we trolled and quickly brought in our first fish, a northern pike, he will join us for dinner, so I thought. A couple miles ahead was the south end of Rose Island where we set up camp.While Dusty was gathering firewood, I paddled a few hundred yards away to clean the fish on a flat rock along the shore; a good practice when wilderness camping, especially in bear country. At this point, the fish had been floating upside down for some time on a stringer trailing the canoe. I flopped him on the rock and removed the stringer, went back to the canoe for the fillet knife, he just laid there, and when I was just about to make the first cut, he flipped-flopped into the ankle deep water right side up, ricocheted between the large rocks, hit the open water and left me and my fillet knife standing there, and he never resurfaced. Nicely played, he obviously had other plans for dinner. Not to worry though, last bow season in Wisconsin I crossed paths with a couple of deer that were a little less fortunate. Back at camp, the venison tenderloins we had packed in dry ice had just thawed and were about to join some garlic mashed potatoes for a dinner in front of a beautiful sunset.