Boundary Waters/Quetico Spring Trip for 2002

June 15th-23rd, 2002
Day 5:Wednesday, June 19th, 2002Back to Jasper

Jasper Lake has always been a favorite lake........Ever since the thrashing we gave the smallies a few years back.

http://geofisher.homestead.com/BWCA2000.html

We decided to once again get up around 4:30am to head for Jasper and be on the lake by say 7:00am.  This would be the perfect time to hit the lake.  

Breakfast this morning was a little different.  We added some of the shelf stable bacon.  Gadgetman said I cooked the crap too long, and refused to eat it.........I gave his to Alan..........5 Minutes later he asked where was his bacon.  I told him......he as a little honked off.  He said he didn't want it........I took that to mean, eat it, or give it to someone else......PERIOD..........  

This trip would be zinxed from the very beginning.  As I was getting into the canoe, one foot was in, and one foot was still on the bank.  The foot on the bank slipped, and went under the canoe.  Since I was half in and half out, you can guess what happened next.  I know this all happened in about 2 seconds, but I swear, Gadgetman yelled "GEORGE, GEORGE, GEORGE.........." about 10 times during this two second interval.  I was a little wet......1 foot soaked up to the knee.  When I turned around and saw Gadgetman, he was pulling himself out of the water.......He was completely wet.  Head to toe........30 minutes later, he was ready to go.  I picked up my favorite fishing pole, and it was busted in half.  During the slip into the canoe, I must have landed on my pole and broke it in half.  At least I had a spare, and the reel was still in good shape.  If it had not been for me breaking an $80.00 fishing rod, I think Gadgetman would still think I put him in the water for griping about the freaking' bacon......................Maybe I DID...........One will never know. 

Great fishing time for smallies.  Once again everyone but me seems to think the key should be "fish in".  This way you can cover more water while getting to your destination.  The day is already starting off bad..........1 hour in, and we have not even made it out of SLATE Lake...........The blood pressure is already beginning to rise.

By 7:30 we make it to where the portages into Lilypad are located.  We opt to take the 28 rod portage into a noname lake and then the 43 rod portage into Lilypad Lake.  This portage is basically a small creek, followed by some huge boulders, that you carry over, and then finally a small Lake.  In the small lake, we burn yet another 30 minutes "screwing around".  Granted, we are catching fish, but by this time, I'm ready to go back to camp.

After a 30 or so minutes, we decide that it was time to head to Jasper Lake.  By this time, it is already pushing 9:00am.  Once we make it over the swampy 43 rod portage into Jasper, we are blasted by mosquitoes.........the only mosquitoes we would run into on the entire trip.  Must have been a fluke, or they must have recognized the fresh blood.........any rate, we were unprepared.  Short sleeves, and no deet............YIKES...........We quickly boarded the canoes and started fishing.  Alan and Josh took the right side of the lake, while Gadgetman and I took the right side.  This is how we always fish, so we don't get into each other's way.  One time we would fish the right side, the other time they would fish the right side...........Each lake was generally switched.  On larger lakes like Saganagons or Saganaga, after each cove, we might switch sides.  This is how it has always been done.....PERIOD.  

Alan and Josh really wanted the right side........this is where Alan and I caught nearly all of our fish in the past.  In one cove..........using mojo rigged power leaches, we caught nearly 40 smallmouth bass.  These all came in about 1 hour, and they were all BIG.  I knew this was a great area, but Gadgetman and I took the other side.  After all, this is where Gadgetman and Mark (His fishing partner 2 years ago). had also torn up the smallies.  Every cast produced a huge fish that year.

After fishing for about 10 minutes, Gadgetman and I realized that the wind was going to keep us from fishing this area..........Actually, it looked like the wind would cause problems on the entire lake.  We decided to move to the top of the other size of the cove.  This is where Alan and Josh would eventually end up.  This was also the only place on the lake where you could get out of the wind.  By this time the wind was blowing around 15-20mph..............It was a pretty decent blow.

Alan and Josh yelled at us for fishing "their side".  I kind of agreed with their complaints, but would have liked fishing this area.  

Gadgetman and I started looking for other areas on the lake to fish.  We tried 10 or 12 different spots, and spent about 1 or 2 hours trying to fish this lake.  It was nearly impossible.  We decided to head back to camp, and try Slate or some other lake.  This was not working.  Yet another day of blown fishing.

On the way back, we decided to head to another magic spot that Alan found last year with Paul on Saganagons.  There are 3 magic coves on Saganagons near the north eastern most part of the lake.  If you know where I'm talking about.........you know what I'm talking about.  We left Jasper lake around 1:00PM, an would arrive at this spot 3 hours later.  Even though it was 4:00PM, we were sure we could catch some decent fish here.  We had managed a few fish on Jasper, but not nearly the quantity or quality we expected.  Saganagons would prove to be the magic spot for this trip.

We arrived at magic cove #1 around 4:00PM, and started fishing.......Almost immediately, we spanked a 2+lb smallmouth.  This fish was about to bust.  A couple minutes later, we caught another, and then another.........and another...........It went on like this until 7:00PM, and was still going.  We caught over 65 smallmouth in a little over 3 hours of fishing.  Every one of these fish were 2lbs or larger.  Many were over 3lbs.  We didn't catch any 4lb. fish, but we caught at least 20 3lb. fish.  Just like last year, it was getting late, and we were getting really tired.  We were going to have to leave the fish, and head back to camp.  At 7:30PM, with the fish still busting the magic bait, we left. 

We left knowing that we probably would have broken our single day smallmouth record set last year in Cache Bay.................BTW that record was broken by Flukemeister and Bellman this year on another Lake, deep in the Quetico.......Flukemeister and Bellman managed to bust over 180 bass in a single day on one very magic lake in Quetico.......ya gotta love that.

Over two hours later, while paddling the final 60 yards to the Fran Lake portage, we nearly hit a huge rock in the middle of the "river".  Funny, I didn't remember that rock being there yesterday.  That's because this was not a rock............it was a Huge bull Moose...........When it lifted it's head out of the water, it scared the crap out of me.........I was only about 20 feet from it.......I snapped a picture, but only got the reflection of its eyes in the shot.  We slowly paddled passed the moose, and quickly hit the portage.  By the time we were out of our canoe, the moose was gone.  This would be the only moose sighting of the week.

Once we arrived at our campsite, I decided it was time to take Dan out, and catch a walleye.  Dan had not caught a walleye, and I'm really the only member of our group who is willing to "target" them.  I was beat, but still wanted to try for some walleyes.  I grabbed by tackle pack, 1 rod, my paddle, and met Dan at the waters edge.  We shoved off, and started trolling shad raps around rocky points, and rocky shelves.  After about 20 minutes of trolling, and showing Dan how to tell if your lure had picked up weeds, we managed to catch a walleye.  Dan was amazed at the "cat-like" eyes of the walleye.  We discussed the feeding tactics of a walleye.  After about an hour on the lake we decided to take our one walleye back to camp.  The skeeters were starting to feed also.  The were not bad, but I was not quite used to getting bitten.  After all, up to this point, there had been only 1 other encounter with mosquitoes, and that was on a portage.

Once again, a was absolutely whipped......

Alan and Josh arrived back at camp.......we smoothed over the disagreements regarding fishing and whatever, and agreed to share the water tomorrow.  BTW......Alan and Josh managed to catch 70 or so smallmouth, and numerous northerns in this unfishable Jasper Lake.

A quick dinner of pasta goop and some foil packed chicken, and then off to bed.  This was the last day I fished hard in the BWCA or Quetico on this trip.  I was tired, whipped, and really didn't care anymore.

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