Day 4 (LLC layover)
Rest day. With getting into camp in the morning the day before it felt more like 2 days off. Slept in until 8am - actually felt a lot later than that. Didn't have much energy or drive in the morning (probably cause I didn't need to). Steve and I looked at our maps over coffee and talked about the route for the rest of the trip. We knew the route apriori (just follow the border) but we tentatively planned the next couple of days travel - weather dependent of course.
About 11am we decided to get off our butts and left for a day trip to Toe Lake. I had put together my fishing rod the night before and was hoping to maybe catch some dinner. I purchased a collapsable rod at Gander Mountain before I left. It was nice in that it packed well into our portage pack and so we didn't have to deal with it on our travel days. I'm not a big fisherman and I don't go up there for the fishing so I don't mind not fishing when we're travelling, but with a nice day and time to clean and prepare some fish in the evening, I was excited to get the line in the water and catch some supper.
We paddled south of the island and I took some pictures:
There were some cool rock cliffs along the south end of the island we were on. Lac La Croix is such a pretty lake. I think it might be my favorite lake in the BWCA.
Me:
Steve:
We fished the shore as we headed east towards the 100 rod portage into Toe Lake from the north. I caught a couple of jacks (northerns) and a small bass. The portage into Toe was muddy and seldom used. Fairly flat (100 rods). Toe Lake is a small lake, nothing remarkable but not unattractive. We paddled along the shore, checked out the campsite (didn't look like much) and I fished. Caught a couple of jacks in Toe. As we made our way along the SE end of Toe Lake, I spied a deer about 200 yards away. I'm an avid deer hunter (some may say addict) and so I've always got my deer radar on. It looked like a nice sized deer so we slowly paddled closer and I got my camera ready:
The deer stayed along the water feeding so we paddled closer...
At this point I could see a rack and the body size and knew we were talking about a BIG deer. Exciting! We slowly paddled closer...
Dang! That's a big deer! To put in perspective, I've been hunting deer for over 15 years (I spent 35+ days in a deer stand last fall alone) and this was one of the three biggest deer I've ever seen in my life. We ended up getting within about 10 yards of it:
The deer never spooked. We were downwind, which helped. It walked up into the woods about 10 yards but never bolted. We could hear it moving around and eating, every once in a while we'd see its legs. 
Very cool stuff!
After we paddled away we were talking about what a cool sight that was. I put the fishing line back in the water. Maybe 200 yards after we left the buck, we heard a rustle along the shore. There was another buck along the water! This one wasn't as big, but it still had a rack that was outside the ears already. It was more skittish and stayed in the brush. If you look close you can make out its head in the picture below. It stayed for about a minute before it bolted.
After the deer we paddled out of Toe Lake to the south and into Lady Boot Bay. I caught a nice 20" walleye that would make for some supper. Caught a couple more jacks, too (threw them all back). We paddled through Lady Boot Bay (very pretty) and back north to the campsite. I caught a few more jacks (about 10 total for the day) but no more walleyes. One would have to do.
We had talked about coming up with a name for my Wenonah MN II. I had purchsed it last fall used from Piragis with this trip in mind (and many others after it). I had taken up on a trip to Lake One about 2 weeks earlier, but this was still its maiden voyage for me. Steve and I threw out some ideas, but Penelope was the one that stuck.
As I mentioned earlier Steve discovered some ripe blueberries on the NW side of the campsite (near the tent). We picked about a half cup, decided to save them for with our oatmeal in the morning. I fileted/butchered the walleye and fried it up for supper. As cook I brought up an assortment of spices and dug through what I had and decided to have a lemon pepper parmesan walleye. Mmmm. Good stuff. We supplemented it with toasted flat bread, an Uncle Ben's wild rice box, and some vanilla pudding. Maybe the finest supper of the trip. We skinned the wine platy and enjoyed the evening. Did some swimming (great swimming rocks) and had some quality conversations regarding PANTs and such (long story which I won't go into here). There was a bald eagle nest across the water from us, so we watched them with the binocs. It was an adult pair with a young one in the nest. There was a gull circling the water in front of us, one of the eagles flew over and went after the fish the gull was targeting. Didn't get it, though. Still, a great site to see. The mosquitos came out and we went to bed fairly early with a long day planned for the morning.
This was hands down the best campsite of the trip - nothing ever came close after it.
Kitchen. Steve collected just a bit of firewood...
Tent on NW part of campsite. Note the lovely rain fly! :)
Looking NW:
The campsite had a nice put-in spot:
I woke up in the night to a bright flashing that lit up the whole camp. Kinda eerie. Steve was awake - said it had been doing that for about a half hour. Lightning but no thunder. Very strange - was much brighter than hear lightning. This lit up our whole campsite. We had clear skies and stars directly above us but there was some serious lightning going on to the south. Winds were out of the south so it was heading towards us. Great! After the first night I was not looking forward to another storm. I got out and took a look. For some reason it calmed me down and I went back into the tent and waited for the storm as we could now hear faint rumblings of thunder. It finally hit. Wasn't bad. All the lightning stayed up in the clouds. Even when it was directly above us the flashes were a couple miles away. Perhaps this is why it lit up the night even when far off? It passed through and we could still see the flashes of lightning lighting up the night. It was maybe two hours in duration from start to finish.
Finally tally:
0 miles (we didn't count day trips)
0 portages (well, 100 rod but it didn't count)
8 loons
8 eagles
4 turltes
1 snake
2 (BIG) deer
Weather:
partly sunny changing to cloudy. Winds gusty in afternoon out of south. Thunderstorm in evening/after dark.
Orr:
High 80, Low 66.
About 11am we decided to get off our butts and left for a day trip to Toe Lake. I had put together my fishing rod the night before and was hoping to maybe catch some dinner. I purchased a collapsable rod at Gander Mountain before I left. It was nice in that it packed well into our portage pack and so we didn't have to deal with it on our travel days. I'm not a big fisherman and I don't go up there for the fishing so I don't mind not fishing when we're travelling, but with a nice day and time to clean and prepare some fish in the evening, I was excited to get the line in the water and catch some supper.
We paddled south of the island and I took some pictures:
There were some cool rock cliffs along the south end of the island we were on. Lac La Croix is such a pretty lake. I think it might be my favorite lake in the BWCA.
Me:
Steve:
We fished the shore as we headed east towards the 100 rod portage into Toe Lake from the north. I caught a couple of jacks (northerns) and a small bass. The portage into Toe was muddy and seldom used. Fairly flat (100 rods). Toe Lake is a small lake, nothing remarkable but not unattractive. We paddled along the shore, checked out the campsite (didn't look like much) and I fished. Caught a couple of jacks in Toe. As we made our way along the SE end of Toe Lake, I spied a deer about 200 yards away. I'm an avid deer hunter (some may say addict) and so I've always got my deer radar on. It looked like a nice sized deer so we slowly paddled closer and I got my camera ready:
The deer stayed along the water feeding so we paddled closer...
At this point I could see a rack and the body size and knew we were talking about a BIG deer. Exciting! We slowly paddled closer...
Dang! That's a big deer! To put in perspective, I've been hunting deer for over 15 years (I spent 35+ days in a deer stand last fall alone) and this was one of the three biggest deer I've ever seen in my life. We ended up getting within about 10 yards of it:
The deer never spooked. We were downwind, which helped. It walked up into the woods about 10 yards but never bolted. We could hear it moving around and eating, every once in a while we'd see its legs. 
Very cool stuff!After we paddled away we were talking about what a cool sight that was. I put the fishing line back in the water. Maybe 200 yards after we left the buck, we heard a rustle along the shore. There was another buck along the water! This one wasn't as big, but it still had a rack that was outside the ears already. It was more skittish and stayed in the brush. If you look close you can make out its head in the picture below. It stayed for about a minute before it bolted.
After the deer we paddled out of Toe Lake to the south and into Lady Boot Bay. I caught a nice 20" walleye that would make for some supper. Caught a couple more jacks, too (threw them all back). We paddled through Lady Boot Bay (very pretty) and back north to the campsite. I caught a few more jacks (about 10 total for the day) but no more walleyes. One would have to do. We had talked about coming up with a name for my Wenonah MN II. I had purchsed it last fall used from Piragis with this trip in mind (and many others after it). I had taken up on a trip to Lake One about 2 weeks earlier, but this was still its maiden voyage for me. Steve and I threw out some ideas, but Penelope was the one that stuck.
As I mentioned earlier Steve discovered some ripe blueberries on the NW side of the campsite (near the tent). We picked about a half cup, decided to save them for with our oatmeal in the morning. I fileted/butchered the walleye and fried it up for supper. As cook I brought up an assortment of spices and dug through what I had and decided to have a lemon pepper parmesan walleye. Mmmm. Good stuff. We supplemented it with toasted flat bread, an Uncle Ben's wild rice box, and some vanilla pudding. Maybe the finest supper of the trip. We skinned the wine platy and enjoyed the evening. Did some swimming (great swimming rocks) and had some quality conversations regarding PANTs and such (long story which I won't go into here). There was a bald eagle nest across the water from us, so we watched them with the binocs. It was an adult pair with a young one in the nest. There was a gull circling the water in front of us, one of the eagles flew over and went after the fish the gull was targeting. Didn't get it, though. Still, a great site to see. The mosquitos came out and we went to bed fairly early with a long day planned for the morning.
This was hands down the best campsite of the trip - nothing ever came close after it.
Kitchen. Steve collected just a bit of firewood...
Tent on NW part of campsite. Note the lovely rain fly! :)
Looking NW:
The campsite had a nice put-in spot:
I woke up in the night to a bright flashing that lit up the whole camp. Kinda eerie. Steve was awake - said it had been doing that for about a half hour. Lightning but no thunder. Very strange - was much brighter than hear lightning. This lit up our whole campsite. We had clear skies and stars directly above us but there was some serious lightning going on to the south. Winds were out of the south so it was heading towards us. Great! After the first night I was not looking forward to another storm. I got out and took a look. For some reason it calmed me down and I went back into the tent and waited for the storm as we could now hear faint rumblings of thunder. It finally hit. Wasn't bad. All the lightning stayed up in the clouds. Even when it was directly above us the flashes were a couple miles away. Perhaps this is why it lit up the night even when far off? It passed through and we could still see the flashes of lightning lighting up the night. It was maybe two hours in duration from start to finish.
Finally tally:
0 miles (we didn't count day trips)
0 portages (well, 100 rod but it didn't count)
8 loons
8 eagles
4 turltes
1 snake
2 (BIG) deer
Weather:
partly sunny changing to cloudy. Winds gusty in afternoon out of south. Thunderstorm in evening/after dark.
Orr:
High 80, Low 66.
posted by the.mrrr at 8:50 AM
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