On Friday the weather settled down a bit. It was chilly, but the skies were mostly clear, and the wind had died down. We had pancakes for breakfast. We were supposed to have French toast, but we were nervous that our bread supply was running low.
The five us headed out for a long fishing trip afterwards. Fish was on the menu for dinner, so we kept a few nice bass that Kristen caught. I had figured out my knot tying mistakes, and started fishing with a Texas Rig. It seemed to work well.
We headed over to the camp site that had been occupied when we first got in. They didn't leave any trash, had cut up a few dead trees, and had an impressive fire pit. We decided we might want to try cooking something on their fire pit for dinner or lunch one day.
At one point during the outing, Milly jumped up on Becky's back as Becky looked over the edge of the boat. Before we knew it, Milly slipped off and splooshed right into the lake. After a few seconds of panicked doggy-paddling by Milly, we got her back in the boat. She didn't seem to enjoy the experience.
We headed back for lunch, then all took naps. At some point Jason took off in the canoe to find the Jonnar portage.
Afterwards Jason, Kristen, and I took off for some more fishing. Jason hooked a nice bass on it's side, so we kept him or her for dinner. Kristen caught a nice bass, but we released it, guessing we had enough for dinner.
We cooked up a huge dinner using the leftover walleye filets from a few nights ago, along with the fresh bass.
Saturday was another clear, calm, chilly day. We had cereal for breakfast, then headed off on dual adventures. Becky and Jason headed toward the logging road to tire out the dog and see if they could find a few lakes. Kristen and I headed to the small lake below the beaver dam on Manitumeig, where we had camped a few years before. The red dragonflies seemed to like my red plaid shirt.
When we found our camping spot, it was obvious that the water level had raised about 2 feet. The huge rock we had camped on was mostly under water, with our fire pit just a few inches from being submerged. Things had really grown up, making the area look a lot different.
We poked around the lake in the canoe, investigating a few beaver houses, and discovering some pitcher plants. We hiked over to the next lake, and generally enjoyed the weather.
On the way back across Manitumeig we caught a few walleye, including one fairly large specimen. Kristen caught a northern so small it slipped through the holes in the net, back into the water.
We got back to the cabin around 3:30. Kristen and I decided to take another dip in the lake. The water seemed much chillier than it had previously. Kristen really yelped when she got in. After shampooing up and getting out of the lake, I noticed Kristen had a leech on her foot. I pointed it out to her, which caused some panicked screaming and general flailing about. We convinced the leech to leave with some shampoo persuasion, and Kristen eventually settled down.
We decided to abort the plan of cooking Orbs(tm) over at the other campsite, and decided to cook them in our own firepit instead. They were very tasty, as always.
Sunday was Becky and Jason's last full day in camp. It was a bit windy, with the wind coming from the north, and blowing to the south. After a pancake breakfast, we again split up, this time with Jason and Becky taking Manitumeig, and we headed out on Donley.
Becky and Jason tried to find the impressive dam that Becky remembers vividly from her childhood, and I only faintly. They covered much of the shoreline of Manitumeig, but didn't have any luck.
Kristen and I fished like crazy on Donley. We caught a few really nice bass, then ran into a patch of northerns that slaughtered our Texas rigs. Kristen lost two lures due to broken lines (probably damaged by previous fish). She vowed to come back and wreak vengeance upon the northerns.
We all met up for lunch back at the cabin. Instead of eating there, we motored over to the campsite, and gave the spiffy firepit there a try. It was so large that we had a hard time building up sufficient coals to cook properly, but we eventually got the job done.
Kristen and I waded about in the shallow water, luckily there were no repeats of the leech incident. Since we were out of the wind, we spent a fair amount of time just taking in the sun.
Once we made it back to camp, we resisted the urge to nap, and headed out for another fishing expedition. We had great luck near Sunset Island, and tried the reef near the Bay of Islands. It was too windy there, so we snuck back into the Bay of Islands to find calmer water.
We were having good luck catching small northerns and bass. Then Kristen hooked something that we could tell was huge. The fish was not having any problems pulling line off the reel. All of our eyes widened, and Jason mentioned something nervously about a "Nantucket sleigh ride". Sure enough, the fish Kristen had hooked started pulling the boat subtlety around the cove we were in.
Kristen calmly listened to all the great advice Jason and I were yelling at her, and with nerves of steel slowly brought the fish closer to the boat. At this point I just wanted to see what it was, regardless of whether we landed it or not.
I handed Jason the camera, and told him how to shoot video. The coloring is a bit messed up (I had munged up a few of the settings earlier), but you can get the idea.
The northern weighed 10.5 pounds on a brand new scale that we later verified as accurate. Kristen was using a tiny white jig with a glow-in-the-dark white tail as bait.
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After taking a bunch of pictures, we released the mighty beast back into the murky waters, and tried fishing a bit more. Unfortunately everything we caught afterwards seemed a bit anti-climactic, so we headed back in. Jason cooked up some great buffalo chicken wraps for dinner. There was much conversation about huge fish for the remainder of the evening.
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