Boundary Waters/Quetico Trip for 2001

June 8th-17th, 2001
Day 5:Tuesday ,June 12th, 2001Taking it Easy 


According to my notes, day 5 was the best day in the Boundary Waters that I have ever had.  Well, according to my partner, in reality, day 6 was the best day.  

Day 5 started out as a "take it easy" day.  Due to all the traveling on Monday (Day 4), we both decided to take it easy.  We started out around 5:00am.  After forcing down another bowl of crappy gourmet oatmeal, some hot chocolate, and some country bacon, we headed out.

We decided to fish First, Second, and Third Bay on Saganaga.  We also decided to try Swamp Lake.  The weather was really not that good for fishing.  We had bluebird skies, and absolutely no wind.  Not even a little breeze.  The water was crystal clear down to 20ft or so.  Without any ripple or wind action, fishing a topwater plug or jerkbait was out of the question.  We tried jigs, the magic bait 1 and 2, and crankbaits.  Nothing seemed to work.  Remember, a few days ago, when we started questioning our ability to catch fish.  We were there again.  These fish should be biting.  We tore them up the night before.  What was going on?

After leaving the magic bank on First Bay, we decided to try fishing around the islands and the entry to Second Bay.  This area has been known to produce some rather large fish.  Last year, the largest smallmouth of the trip, a 4.3lb female was caught in the shallow water near the channel from First Bay to Second Bay. 

It was around 9:00am when we started catching fish in Second Bay.  We found a shallow area near the eastern end of Second Bay where northern and smallies were busting minnows.  They had "corralled" the minnows up onto a shallow bank and were busting them.  We sat in this area for 30 or 40 minutes, catching 2 and 3lb smallies, along with decent northerns on nearly every cast.  Then they were done.  We couldn't buy a fish, it didn't matter what bait we tried, the fish had turned off, and we were not going to catch them.  

After thoroughly fishing Second Bay, we decided to hit "George Straits", and move on.  "George Straits" is an area between Second Bay and Third Bay where I had caught double 6lb walleye on a jig and leach the first year I was up there.  These would be the only fish caught that day, and would make great eating for the 9 members of our crew.  

When a significant catch is made, or something special happens in a particular area, that area is named after the person.  This is how the name "George Straits" was coined.  We also have a "Motsinger Point" after Mots, and a "Nelson Point" who discovered Magic Bait Number 1 on accident.  Nelson had tied on the Magic Bait number 1 because a friend from Kentucky said they were deadly on smallies.  On 3 casts, he caught 3 smallmouth bass.  The largest being over 4lbs.  A few casts later and some 20 fish later, the Magic Bait number 1 was done.  He had run out, and nothing could, or would replace the action.

After passing "George Straits", we headed into Third Bay.  In Third Bay we managed to catch a few fish, but nothing spectacular.  The neatest thing happened on Third Bay though.  I had caught a 10 or 12" smallmouth.  While reeling the fish in, a northern about 10 or 15lbs blasted the fish at the boat.  I fought the northern for nearly 10 minutes, without a hook ever in the northern.  After what seemed to be forever, the northern simply let go of the smallmouth.  I'm not sure if that fish survived, but I know it was torn up pretty bad.  It did swim off though.  Now thinking back, I wish we had kept that fish, because we decided about an hour later to have fish for lunch.

Another interesting thing would happen that is noteworthy.  After deciding we would eat fish, we put to smallmouth on the stringer, and headed back to camp.  At this time, it was nearing 2:00PM.  As we left Third Bay, GadgetMan saw the largest northern he had personally ever seen in the boundary waters.  It was nearly 4ft long, and headed straight towards the canoe.  This huge northern busted the smallies on the stringer.  We had to actually fight the northern for the smallmouth bass.  Eventually, we won the battle, and put them in the boat.  Both smallmouth had battle scars from the northern.

After reaching the campsite, I cleaned the smallmouth.  We always have either baked or blackened any fish with blackening seasoning and butter.  We blackened these fish and had them with Idaho instant potatoes.  The 4 cheese potatoes are amazing good.  Two fish for two guys and potatoes was more than enough food.  Both of these fish were female, and had immature eggs.  We determined that the fish in this area of the park were still feeding up, and would be on the next in the next few days.

After lunch we decided to take a nap.  We slept for nearly 5 hours, and headed out for early evening fishing.  There was still not much wind, and the mosquitoes and black flies decided to make up for some lost time.  The fishing was not that good, and the bugs were terrible.  We decided to head back to camp, eat dinner, and call it a night.

For dinner, we decided to eat a lunch meal instead.  We made tunafish salad using mayo, cheese, pickle relish and salt and pepper.  We had planned on having this in a pita pocket, but our pita had already started to mold.  The tuna straight from the package was pretty good, but a little dry.  After tuna, I made one of our deserts.  The cookies and cream desert from Jell-O was pretty easy to make, and set up really good.  

We hit the sack pretty early.  That night, it stormed about as hard as I have ever seen it storm in the Boundary Waters.  The tent stayed dry through the entire storm.  

In the time we had spent at this campsite, our fishing numbers have greatly diminished.  We had only caught 30 or 40 smallmouth bass and only a few northern in 1-½ days of fishing.

Total Smallies caught to date:   181.  We were not keeping numbers of northern, but estimate the number to be somewhere around 50.

We decided tomorrow would be the day we tackled Cache Bay and virgin water. 

Wednesday, June 13th, 2001 would in fact be the best day I have ever had, or ever heard of (within our group of 20) in the BWCA or Quetico as far as fishing would go.
This page was last updated on: December 23, 2022