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.

Boundary Waters - Kids Trip

Third annual Father-Child trip. Same crew as 2008: Mike and Max (8) Beckman; Mark, Luke (11), Ben (9), and Allie (8) Janosy; Pete, Megan (8), and Morgan (8) Mavoides; and Dave, Sam (8) and Sean (6) Sommerness.

The Mavoides and Janosi flew and drove in, respectively, the night of July 16th and spent the night at our house in Bloomington. We were up fairly bright and early and hit the road for the north woods, stopping for a cold cut lunch at the Beaver Bay Holiday Inn. It was a little cool for July, and as we headed inland from the shore it started to drizzle. Our previous two trips had near-perfect weather, so the law of averages had to catch up with us at some point. Spirits were high as we pushed off from the landing in the early afternoon.

We decided to take three canoes in, trimming them as best we could to account for light kids in front (or was it heavy dads in back?). In addition to the drizzle, the wind started kicking up, which made for a harrowing southern turn out of the Alton Lake portage. We all made it and started riding with the waves down the eastern shore looking for a campsite. One, two, three campsites were occupied before we passed our 2008 site. It too was occupied, so we kept going. It was looking pretty grim - none of us wanted to have to paddle against the waves back up to the northern end of the lake - but we thankfully struck paydirt on the very last site on the lake. It wasn't the greatest site in terms of having a nice landing area, but there were plenty of tent pads - home for four days!

The rain stopped for the most part, but it remained overcast and cool (lots of wind) for the first couple days. Pete's attempt to travel back to Sawbill to pick up Mike and Max was aborted due to the wind, so Jugs had to join him for the journey. I stayed back with 5 of the kids and took turns taking them fishing against the leeward side of a small island just outside our bay.

The weather turned beautiful on Sunday and Ben was finally able to swim (he'd been champing at the bit since we arrived). The fishing wasn't great - we pulled in a half dozen smallmouth over the course of the 4 days but no walleye. The boys caught a number of crayfish - the dads too one Beam-fueled night - and they made a nice appetizer a couple nights.

First order of business: Inventory Propel and determine daily ration.

Pete and the girls enjoy some coffee and cocoa.

Drying out - campsite from the water's edge.

There were a few games of LCR but not nearly the draw as 2008.

Water detail

Fun with licorice

Whittling was a big draw

The girls with their replacement knives


Sean moved on to larger projects...

Warming up the grill for Allie...


The trooper

Dad, I need another leech - shocker.

Now that's a bass!

Luke, right before we blew down the lake


Mmmmm Spam


Mmmmm crayfish

The night the Beam ran out...