A rare catch

Hesler visited J and me at Cass Lake. Between the grouse hunting and general merry making, we squeezed in a little fishing. There was not much action but Hesler, while still fishing off the dock, managed to land an eelpout.

Over several decades of fishing off that same dock, I have never caught a single pout, so I consider this quite an accomplishment.

J and I ate the fish on our anniversary. Locals call the eelpout "poor man's lobster." If that's true, being poor isn't so bad as it's cracked up to be because that fish was scrumptious.

Some fish-free images from Cass Lake

October kitty

I caught this chunky channel cat on the Mississippi River in mid-October. He (she?) was fooled by a ripe chicken liver.

Fishing Lake Windigo

J and I lucked out with the weather on our visit to the Island. On Saturday, we snuck off for an afternoon Windigo paddle.

The fishing by the south portage was good. We managed to boat a mess of northerns and largemouth. J caught a northern with an unusually big head. I'll post that pic when I get a copy.

Couldn't complain about the scenery, either.

PK snared a dandy walleye

in Ensign Lake on our last day in the BWCA.

It was a bit rugged--rainy and windy--as we paddled our packed canoe to the portage at Splash Lake.

Those clouds looked heavy, too heavy

And there was a good explanation: they were full of rain. Lots of rain.

When we saw it coming, PK and I were fishing our aforementioned honey hole, a quarter mile portage from base camp. The action was good but once the wind whipped up we knew we had to book.

We humped the canoe back to Ensign as quickly as we could and a stiff wind blew at our backs as we paddled back to camp.

We weren't fast enough.

Everything got soaked in PK's tent, including his down sleeping bag. In the end, though, I managed to get a cooking fire going as PK toasted the good fishing.

From that sweet BWCA honey hole

PK shows off a 17-inch largemouth and nice waldo. I landed a chunky bucketmouth, too, as you can see.

A nice mixed bagged stringer from Ensign Lake

PK hoisted fish. I hoisted the food pack (that blue food bag that is supposedly hung out of reach of bears).

Crazy as a loon indeed

So PK and I were fishing a little cove on Ensign Lake when we noticed two nearby loons, feeding aggressively in the shallows. Nothing unusual about that. These birds were much more approachable than the loons that live on lakes where motorboats are allowed. The Ensign Lake loons seem to understand that canoes are slow and harmless.

But what happened right before I snapped this picture was strange.

As I was retrieving a shallow running Rap, I peered into the water just below the canoe and was startled to see something very big and very fast in hot pursuit of the lure. At first I thought it was a big fish. Then I shouted to Kohlie, Crap, it's got legs. The loons swimming motion is something to behold. Those legs are really long--you can see one in the photo--and the wings are used for steering, giving the effect of a fighter jet.

As that loon closed in for the kill--or a mouth full of barbed treble hooks--I yanked the lure out of the water.

In a moment, the loon popped up by the side of the canoe, gave me a crabby look and floated away at a relaxed pace. No fear.

Into the Boundary Waters we paddled

While the economy was plummetting, PK and I decided to respond in the only way we knew how: we headed out to the Boundary Waters for four days of canoeing, camping, fishing and general avoidance of bullshit.

The fishing was good. Mostly, we worked the waters on east end of Ensign Lake. We set up two base camps there--the second one, on a south facing rock landing, was better--and harassed the usual suspects in likely locations. We caught smallies, walleye and northern. Nothing spectacular in terms of size but a satisfying clip.

Our best fishing was on a sweet little lake located a healthy portage away. This particular body of water was packed with largemouth bass and northerns. Both times we fished this lake-not-to-be named, we slayed 'em. Actually, we didn't slay them. We let them go.