Voyageurs National Park

Here are a few pictures from a trip to Voyageurs National Park on the Canadian border I took this August. My buddy Jon and I normally do a trip to the Boundary waters, but since we were a little short on time due to my lack of vacation days at the new job, we sprung for a trip to Voyageurs. The master plan was to load down the canoe with all our gear, hook it up to my 70' something 12 ft Alumacraft and 15 hp Yamaha, and tow it to the campsite. It turned out to be a bit harder than we thought to get it to work, but we eventually discovered that by hooking two ropes to the canoe, and slowing down a bit, it would pull pretty smooth. We did some fishing from the motorboat in lake Kabetogama, and portaged the canoe into some small interior lakes off the beaten path. It turned out the the fishing stunk pretty bad in both the main lake and the small lakes, but we managed to nab enough to eat as much as we wanted. And the scenery was pretty sweet. There was alot more traffic than the boundary waters, but it is still a really nice place to camp and kick back in the northwoods. The highlight was coming across a bear that was swimming across the main lake. He didn't care for getting viewed and photographed, but a boat goes alot faster than a swimming bear, so he didn't have much choice. After doing circles around him for a few minutes, he got kinda dizzy and let us take blurry picture.

Jon's fat fryer

Here is one of my bestest buddies slash partner in crime with his first bow kill. Not a hawg, but hey it will be tasty. Tough to beat the low mileage ones for succulent corn fed flavor. One shot from the PSE, and down he went.

Mr. Big Fish

Here are the 5 beauties I nabbed in a single day of fishing in North West Ontario this June. It was the best day on the water I have ever had. The first fish is a 34 muskie, the second a 33 1/2 northern pike, the third a 30 inch northern, the fourth a 37 inch northern pike, and the fifth a 38 inch muskie. Nabbed em all on a cheap spinning rod from Joes sporting goods and some 8 lb cabala’s bulk mono (that stuff is tougher than steel and cheaper than dirt) on a Shimano Sedona reel, tossing a little silver spinner.

The 37 inch northern put up the best fight of the 5 of them. There was a cliff along the shore that dropped off into about 20 feet of water. The cliff shaded the water, making it look deep dark, and tantalizing, the perfect lair for a beast. I plopped the spinner tight to the cliff and let it settle down maybe 8 ft or so, and started a slow retrieve. It made it about a foot or so, and then POW, the big fat girl latched right on and started screaming my drag. After a tricky combination of driving the boat ( I was running the trolling motor) and fighting the fish, I managed to get out into the deeper part of the lake and tire the beast out. After a photo or two, it was back into the drink to grow even bigger and uglier.