Gear Notes and Final Stats
Food: Quantity packed was about right this year. We had a few meals left over due to early exit and packing a few spares. A fair amount of beef jerky was left, but the Rx bars very nearly out. Summer sausage, cheese, hot sauce, oil, breading all held out without too much left over.

New meals: Tacos were a hit. Steaks were a hit. Chicken Noodle Soup was a hit. Hashbrowns were a hit (2 cartons=6 individual servings, good to have at three meals during the trip). Bannock was a nice addition too, and I think it could be even better with some fiddling with different spices added to the mix. I plan to have bannock at about half the meals during the week. Stir Fry was not very good. With better beef jerky used to cook it, it has potential though.

Fuel used: 1 16 oz canister of isobutane was empty after one week. So we used just a little over 2 oz/person/day with our current cooking methods.

New Gear: Pocket bellows, hacky sack, sun shirts, deck of cards and chess board all solid additions. The Helinox camp table was the overall gear MVP of the trip. I felt silly when I bought the WarBonnet RidgeRunner bridge hammock since I already had a Blackbird, but this was absolutely the right call for me. Setting up the RidgeRunner is foolproof and easy, saving me a great deal of stress and effort during the busy camp set up time…Plus, I slept as well out in the park as I do at home!

New Fishing Gear: Replacing our net almost certainly saved the trip! The rod holders were terrific, and even though it seemed silly, having one on each side of the thwart made fishing off of either side fo the boat a breeze.

Lure review: Andrew’s soft plastics, especially the swim baits, were wildly successful. His mini chatterbait also had a lot of success. The tail dancers unfortunately didn’t work too well this time around, though not for lack of trying. While I liked having many crank bait patterns to troll, I didn’t have much luck. The Vibrax spinners especially the (Perch/Gold #3) as well as the big Mepps spinners worked well for me, though I felt like I lost a few more fish than I would’ve liked due to barbless hooks. I will continue to fish barbless when fishing with multiple trebles, but might go back to barbed for single hooks and single trebles. We don’t expect to plan trips targeting lake trout in the near future, but I still would like to give the BWJ Klos lake trout lures a try to see if we can have better luck when we are on lakes that hold lake trout. Sharpening hooks was a pain…but it also may have been instrumental in hooking into the Pike of legend. I’ll keep doing it, but I’m going to get an earlier start next time!

New waters: The portage to Gulf Lake wasn’t easy, but fishing on Romance more than made up for it. I’m feeling more confident that we can skip the day trip in the future, driving up then entering the following morning. Rabbit is a beautiful, secluded lake, but I was a bit disappointed by the campsite, and we expected much better fishing. The South Arm of Knife lived up to the hype, delivering not just the fish of a lifetime, but multiple quality fish in various locations throughout the lake, stunning scenery, and a great campsite. While our day trip up to Knife’s northern arm wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped, I think there’s still great potential there and I’d love to explore that area further. Ashdick was a hoot, providing the best fishing action of the trip. It was worth dealing with the rough and tumble campsite for the fishing success we had.

Decisions:

Waking up in the dark to tear down camp is not fun, but it’s still well worth it to both of us on travel days so we can put miles behind us while conditions are more favorable. This also makes for far less worry about finding a solid campsite.

Allowing plenty of time for travel to/from Knife, plus multiple days solely dedicated to fishing on Knife was the right call. It’s tough to clear space for a trip of this length, but I’m so glad we did. Though I hated leaving early, the joy of experiencing a near stress-free travel and camp day on Saganaga was more than worth it.

Choosing to paddle rather than tow across Saganaga almost bit us on entry day. I did everything I could to make sure we had “outs” we were comfortable with, but our travel on day one was much, much harder than I’d hoped for. However, both Andrew and I are proud of ourselves for having taken on the challenge of paddling across Sag and we will forever remember it. We also both appreciate the freedom of making your own schedule when you paddle versus book a tow. Choosing the take the Ashdick-Swamp portage also made some memories and we both had fun taking the road less traveled!

Expected routing for next year: Andrew and I plan to explore Clearwater, East Pike, and Caribou in hopes of more smallmouth and northern pike fishing. Emil and I plan to enter on Saganaga or Seagull to base camp on Grandpa to fish for northern pike and Roy for smallmouth bass. Another option may be a Wood Lake entry to base camp on Good, Indiana, or Wind. Both trips will be less than a week in duration.

Final stats—> Portages: 22 | Portage rods: 1251 | Total portage distance (accounting for double portaging): 11.7 miles | Approximate distance paddled: 65 miles | Travel Time: 32:45

Fish caught: 79 | Species: 52 smallmouth, 18 pike, 5 largemouth, 3 walleye, 1 lake trout | Andrew: 47 fish (35 SB, 7 NP, 4 LB, 1 LT) | Dad: 32 fish (17 SB, 11 NP, 3 W, 1 LB) | By lake: Romance 12, Rabbit 1, Ashdick 23, South Arm Knife 27, Knife 13, Toe 2, Saganaga 1 | Top lures: Z-Man Minnowz swim bait, Z-Man mini chatterbait, Vibrax #3 Perch/Gold, Mepps #5 Black Fury or Gold/chartreuse skirt, Z-Man ticklerz