BWCA - Missing Link Lake

4-day, 3-night trip over Memorial Day to Missing Link Lake in the Boundary Waters with my brother ben and his boys, Aidan and Owen. Story to follow...

Whitewater State Park - Spring Fishing

The boys were on Spring Break this week. We weren't going to Florida, and the weather was looking good, so we headed south to take in the Spring catch-and-release season in southeast Minnesota.

We rolled into Whitewater State Park mid-afternoon on Thursday. The day was to be our coldest but even so the sun came out and we quickly set up camp. We had the whole campground to ourselves and picked a nice spot by the river (#91). There weren't any facilities yet (toilets, showers, or water), so we were basically leasing a plot of dirt and grass for a few days. In a few weeks you won't be able to get a spot here. This was a great trial run of the wall tent, in anticipation of heavier use out West.

Here are a few pics of the layout inside - it was great to be able to stand up, walk around, and generally have room. It didn't rain while we were there, but there was plenty of room to eat a couple meals around the table.

The Alaskan stove from our winter camping kit came in handy, though it was a bit undersized for 12x14.

The first night was pretty cold, but I didn't hear any complaints so I figured the extra blankets helped the boys. We were getting ready for bed the next night when I noticed Sean layering on extra clothes. In the course of talking him down from three t-shirts and a fleece he explained how cold he was the previous night, quickly corroborated by Sam. I'm pretty impressed that I didn't hear any sniveling from the boys - they just took the cold in stride, drove on, and came up with a plan for the next night.
Happy Sam - fleeced up and ready for bed.
Fishing: It's why we came down here, and I don't think I've ever had a better couple days fly-fishing in Minnesota. The weather was warm, the water was clear and high, there was nobody else on the river, and most importantly - the trout were hungry. Sam counted 22 caught altogether, and we missed just as many - mostly browns but some rainbows too, including a couple nice 14"+. We were catching them on nymphs in the morning and evening (pheasant tail and copper john) and both days there was a great March Brown hatch mid-afternoon. I didn't have a matching pattern, but dark elk hair caddis worked pretty well, especially in choppier water. There was a hole right below our campsight where the flish were slapping at the surface for hours. At times the browns were porpoising out of the water to get at the bugs. It was unreal.
Sam was all over the fishing. Every second he could steal away from camp he'd head down to the river with his fly rod. He had some bad luck with gear though. We found a leak in his wader on the first day, and he snapped the end of his rod the second (I was just casting...).

Bent rod and tight line on a nice rainbow:

Signature Sam pose
I was cleaning up after breakfast when I got the "Daddy get the camera" call.

Sean gave it a go for awhile, but he got pretty frustrated with the fly-fishing and switched to spinning off and on. Still, for the first time he did pretty well and actually remembered several of my admonishments.
Sean the "gizmo man": binoculars, pocket knife, and two multi-purpose compass/magnifying glass/thermometer/+ thingys that he's picked up over the past couple years. After having to untangle the mess of lanyards a couple times, I lighted on the idea of storing it all in his fishing vest. Apart from the hassle, I was worried he was going to trip and snag himself on something.
He also did a bit of whittling - or commissioning me to whittle. I would have had one for Sam too, but I nearly sliced the tip of my finger off digging out the "M".
Sean did manage to muscle in this beautiful rainbow on a fly rod. Yes, he's clutching all that fish slime hard to his t-shirt. Thought I'd throw in a pic of one of my fish. The browns were absolutely gorgeous.

Fish punks

Boundary Waters - Winter Trip to Duncan Lake (aka One Fish Lake)

"You guys might not know this but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolfpack. But when my sister brought Doug home I knew he was one of my own. And my wolfpack, it grew by one. So there were two of us in the wolfpack. I was alone first in the pack and then Doug joined in later. And 6 months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys I thought, wait a second, could it be. And now I know for sure that I just added two guys to my wolfpack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together in Las Vegas looking for strippers and cocaine."

Made a 4-day/3-night journey into the Boundary Waters 27 February - 2 March with my brother Ben and Mark Janosy.

Pile-up at the entry point. We shaved about a mile off our hike into Duncan from a couple years ago by looking at the map. We entered at Bearskin Lake, which is totally out of the BWCA, and there were a lot of ice fishermen in for the day.

We had to cross Bearskin and one portage and we were on Duncan. Relatively easy - but the gear had to be secured.

We were happy to find that there was no slush on the lake, so we set up the tent right on the ice, carving out working and campfire areas. The weather was great - highs in the low 40's and single digits at night.
It took one night for us to figure out that we could put the third cot back behind the stove. Shorter cots certainly helped.
Splitting crappy firewood. We got into a couple good logs but had plenty of duds that didn't burn well in the tent.
After setting up camp, we hit the ice, and Mark caught this beauty within an hour. Prospects were looking up, but alas, it was to be our only fish. Mark caught the only fish here a couple years ago as well.
We had a full moon every night - lots of great illum. As we were sitting around the campfire the first night we heard a wolf howling out on the lake. After a while we could see it sniffing around our ice holes, and then it started coming towards us. It stopped about 100 yards away, barked at us a bit, and then cut into the woods. Minutes later it reappeard about 50 yards away, scooted to the center of the lake, and howled for another 15 minutes.
On Sunday we trekked back to the Gunflint Trail and the Windigo Lodge to catch the Olympic gold medal game between USA and Canada. Not much of a crowd, but they had a great TV. The beer tasted good too...

We daytripped to Moss Lake on Monday. It was a gorgeous day, most of which we spent in our shirts out in the sun. No fish.

Heading back to Duncan from Moss.

Hay Creek - Winter Trout Season

Spent a few hours on Hay Creek today. It was a beautiful day, somewhat unfortunately - I would have preferred it to be overcast. As it was, it was cold and sunny. Great to be outdoors. You can almost see the branch that was soon to take half my leader here...

Find the roosters...

Camping Season Recap

I think I can say with some confidence that the camping season is over for the year. Overall, the boys had 17 tent nights in 2009:
- Forestville SP (1) early May
- Crosby Manitou SP (3) Memorial Day
- Wild River SP (3) June
- BWCA (4) July
- Badlands/Black Hills (4) August
- William O'Brien SP (2) Labor Day

I added another 3 on a February BWCA trip and 4 on a May BWCA trip, for a total of 24. Pretty solid work - we'll give the tents a few months rest.

Sam Scores a Touchdown!

Badlands and Black Hills

Day 1. Cedar Pass Campground area. We did a few short hikes, but as you can see, the weather was a little overcast and rainy. Still beautiful country.

I swear I just saw a prairie dog down this hole.
Sage Creek Campground - primitive and grasshoppery.
After the storm - beautiful sunset.
I dare anyone to try and drive by Reptile Gardens with a 6 and an 8 year old boy. It's impossible.

Giant tortoise is 128 years old.

Beautiful drive through Custer State Park - you can see Mt. Rushmore in the distance over Sam's head.

French Creek - caught a few chubs but no brook trout. We didn't pound it hard though.

Here's the big male buffalo we almost ran into on the trail and who later came down for a drink of water.

Sylvan Lake

Grace Coolidge walk-in fishing area. It's a series of 6 small reservoirs made along a stream. Sam caught a few rainbows on a beetle fly, including this nice 12-incher.

Last morning - had to almost shake them out of bed.