The time has finally arrived... Tomorrow I am headed up to Cloquet, MN to spend the night, and Thursday morning my group will be stopping by Ely then launching our canoes soon afterwards. There will be a total of four guys on this trip- myself, dad, and a couple of his co-workers (this group has camped together for almost 20 years). We will be paddling and portaging into Heritage Lake on Thursday and plan on setting up camp there and fishing 'til we pack out on Sunday. The weather forecast looks spectacular, with temps maybe dipping into the 30s overnight and one day with a 40% chance of rain.

Being October, I'm hoping the big pike are biting (and will be prepared with Mepps spinners, and Rapala minnows) but it should be great regardless of fish biting. I'm ready to go!

Following up on that initial post, our trip to the Boundary Waters was pretty good. The weather was tough- cold, rainy, and windy, but the fish still bit some and we managed to stay comfortable in camp. Our group consisted of my dad, two of his co-workers, and myself.

We set up our base camp at the North end of Heritage Lake, which took several hours of paddling and five portages from the #14 entry point. The longest portage was 210 rods and had a flooded mucky section that was a pain in the ass to cross. Our weather was pretty good through our first day in the bush (Thursday) and we enjoyed ribeye steaks for dinner:



The view from the campsite was great, with the autumn leaves peaking in color.



On Friday morning we set out to fish early and were greeted by 20 mph winds from the South. My dad and I paddled South on the lake to a small bay and let the wind drift us to the North while we fished weeds and the shoreline with Mepps spinners and Rapala minnows. We caught a few small northern pike doing this.





This was our catch on Friday after fishing all day:



None very big, but we had enough for the four person group to eat.

Storm clouds moved in that evening and stuck around until we paddled out on Sunday.



Fishing on Saturday was on-par with Friday. Small pike hitting sporadically on whatever we casted and trolled. We took some time on Saturday to visit Loon Lake, which borders with Canada.

Taking this photo, I was standing on Minnesota ground and the far shoreline is Canada:



We came across fresh moose and wolf tracks along the trail, with this near the shoreline:





The undergrowth in the Boundary Waters forests always amazes me with the amount of lush moss and lichen with odd fungi as well.









Finally, while our campsite was no good for sunsets we got to see the most spectacular sunrises of my life. Simply stunning.

The next weekend I joined a buddy to go back up North to hunt grouse near International Falls and fish on Rainy Lake. We saw plenty birds while hunting before a storm rolled in on that Saturday evening and continued through Sunday. We launched the boat in snow and rain that Sunday morning and went over near the Canada side to jig in 40 feet of water.



My buddy and the fella that took us fishing (a family friend of his) caught some walleyes and crappies while I had nothing.



After an hour of fishing I finally felt a bite, and reeled this slab of a crappie in:



15.5". Easily my biggest yet.



My buddy with our stringer after we headed in.

GREAT pictures.....thanks