We fished our way back to the island and found more pickerel along the way putting into use the "pattern" we have developed over the years when fishing new waters. That provided our first pickerel dinner. It was a beautiful night and a definite warming trend with no wind.
Thursday morning brought me a beautiful sunrise over still waters and a friendly loon. No fog this morning as it was warming up nicely. After shooting a couple dozen pictures of the sunrise, I made a few casts off the island and finally got into a couple of pickerel, one of which I kept and put in the rock live well next to where I was fishing.
We would need a couple more for a meal, but what better place to keep it until later?
Christine eventually got up and soon we had a nice breakfast and planned this day's activities. The wind had come up again out of the south this time so Christine had to paddle while I got to fish, it was too windy to just drift and boat control is the duty of the person in the stern seat. The day before I had paddled from the stern coming back from the falls so she could fish and I mapped the lake bottom on my depth finder.
In behind the larger island out of the wind, we had an eagle swoop in and land on the largest tree it could find, with its back to us. We pulled in close to shore and I had the camera pointed almost straight up to get photo's and happily it turned around a couple of times for me, but it was a challenging shot to get. In a bay behind that island we saw two does wading and foraging, and later in the day we would see them again across from the island following a buck. They never got close enough for photo's, I will need a longer lens for that.
Heading back to the site for lunch and to drop another pickerel into the live well, we were amazed to find the one from earlier seemingly no longer there. Had the eagle swooped down and had an easy meal? We kept the fish on the stringer in there to hopefully thwart it again.
Later that day, before having what would be our second and last pickerel meal for the trip, I was sitting on the shore and a big snapper moseyed up the sloping rock within ten feet. Each time I moved it would move out but kept coming back. Eventually he/she went away but later, 30 feet out, a smaller snapper popped up out of the deep, like a sub doing an emergency blow, then the big one came up behind that one in the same fashion, it was quite spectacular.
They both hung out for an hour or so, likely foraging on the new fish carcasses in the 15 feet of water just offshore. This time the large one allowed me to get close enough for good photo's. The shell on the old guy was close to 2 feet long and he had been in the water a long time based upon the algae on his back.
We figured they are habituated to the island from previous campers who, like us, would toss the fish remains into the deep water off the rock shore.
Up there on that lake was pure silence, night and day. We could hear a beaver gnawing on a tree behind the island one night. When the crickets stopped it was pure silence, no frogs, no birds, no leaves rustling.
Shortly before sunset we heard a splash close to shore but couldn't see any rings forming on the lake, so we headed to shore to see what it could have been... lo and behold we find the missing pickerel finning half hidden behind a large flat rock where it must have been hiding all day. With some effort and taking down half the wall, we freed it and it took off in a frenzy to likely hide somewhere deeper. After that we removed all places a fish could hide or escape. Someone put a lot of effort into building that and it isn't our place to tear it down, and given the resident turtles, it likely works well to protect ones shore lunch.
A definite warm front moved in late on the south wind, the temperature rose at least ten degrees and before dawn some thunderstorms rolled through dropping a ton of rain. Even though we were well up the slope, we still managed to be in the flow down to the bowl and it appeared the water rose high enough to allow a small amount into the tent.
Friday morning was moving day, back down to Elbow and perhaps further since Saturday was leaving day. Dead calm and hot to start the day and hotter as the day progressed. Packed and moving early and the other group was moving today as well. We had a good chat at the end of the port, we passed on fishing info for them before we set out once again. All the way across and down Elbow it was dead calm. It would be a formidable lake to cross in a wind, it can be quite deep, we did find a couple of 40 foot depths on the other side of the point and assume it is the same on the south side of the long point.
Since we had one more night out there, we checked out some of the sites before the last designated site on the river proper. #3 is really nice, great for a group, two fire pits and a fully enclosed privy. #2 was a disappointment, it would be the first site on the lake itself after coming out of the river. The only flattish tent pad I could find had used toilet paper strewn about it. This was the first "dirty" site we had seen of all the ones we had looked at. I didn't actually find the privy on this site, likely it was deeper into the bush.
Let me clarify what I would call dirty. This one had used TP strewn about but was otherwise clean. If you are seeking "no trace" then this route isn't for you. There are small amounts of trace on all the sites, be it nails in trees, the odd rusty or burnt can and little bits of plastic, twist ties, littered on the ground. This route and Elbow Lake get "A lot" of use during the summer so this type of thing is expected.
Our last site for this trip was the one on the river off the main lake and again we found partially burnt beer cans, rusty cans hidden in a cleft under a rock and Christine found partially burned TP in and around the fire pit, and when you consider the privy was less than 30 feet away, you have to wonder why they left toilet paper out there.
All the privy's in the park are plastic and made in Canada. Some of the holes are deeper than others depending on the amount of earth they could find on the site. They all have a nice view but this one was on a slant and anyone paddling by could watch you do your business, and as Christine pointed out, you could fish from this one.
Mid to late afternoon storms were brewing and a huge thunderstorm passed by just to the northeast of us, we were actually under the outside edge of it, later we would find out that Lac Du Bonnet was under a severe thunderstorm watch that afternoon and we had front row seats for that storm system. Although we were watching more thunderheads building behind us, none of them spoiled our day.
As evening progressed we met a group of 3 canoes/8 people coming in for the weekend and sent them around to the large site we had seen earlier in the day.
Being on "new" water we put the established pattern into play and it worked once again, we finally found the jumbo yellow perch, a species we seek for meals, and pike and pickerel. We were out for a couple of hours and landed 18 fish. We fished for about 14 hours total on this trip and caught 68 fish, which is why we had come in the first place to this route.
Later that evening as we sat by the campfire, we heard what at first sounded like gunshots from the site where the group had gone, but it turned out they were lighting off a lot of firecrackers. Seeing as they had children along it likely was done to scare off any wildlife that may have been hiding in the dark woods and a cheap version of bear bangers.
Shortly after that barrage of noise I noticed a V in the water from the far bank across to camp and the little creature with eyes that shone blue under my headlamp turned out to be a mink! We saw 2 more on the trip out the next day.
Saturday morning I was again up before sunrise, we had a small breakfast, packed up and headed out. We did chat with a couple of guys heading in for a day's fishing and the other group was chasing us out and we took our time, but still made it back to the parking lot in just over 3 hours.
All in all it was a great trip with fabulous scenery and fishing, peace and quiet and we will definitely be going back, but only in the off season, we imagine Elbow Lake to be a zoo during the summer months with the ease of access.
Wildlife seen... 4 eagles, 3 deer, 3 mink, beavers, loons, cranes, geese, ducks, crows, hawk, frogs, garter snake, chipmunk, mole, turtles, crawfish.