a routine of fire, breakfast, wood cutting and fishing for dinner began to form over the next three days of amazingly warm weather. the barometer rose and we had clear skies and warm sun.
skiing to our fishing holes in the narrows was a pleasure on the track that we formed, but veer off and the skis would break thru the thin crust of snow that would get soft during the day and freeze hard at night. break thru the crust and the tips of your skis would be stuck under the icy layer so hard sometimes you would have to clip out of your bindings just to pull the skis out from under the crust.
we sat out on in the open on the ice in the narrows and i caught a nice size lake trout on the first jig of the day. then nothing. although finding the fish was difficult, the task was an enjoyable one knowing that one or two fish in a day was all that we needed for our dinner. a pretty simple agenda to keep while enjoying the sun as the temperature jumped up to nearly forty.
a word about fishing...we were relying fairly heavily on our abilities to find and catch fish to supplement our dinners for the duration of our trip. we had packed a few dehydrated dinners that we had prepared before we set out on the trip but those were to be used while we trekked to and from the cabin with the possibility of doing some extended exploring as well. so fish was basically the entire dinner menu...it allowed us to pack in lighter and faster, think about packing in nearly thirty days of dinners along with all of the other supplies..there is also the fact that we love to dine on fish, did i mention that we get to eat our catch the same day?
an attempt at fishing the point off of McMILLAN ISLAND was also made during this stretch and we pulled in a nice trout and two pikes. ELI did lose a beautiful walleye though. when we drilled the hole we did not punch the auger all the way through the ice at the bottom of the hole. when he reeled the fish up to the hole, the fish got caught on the edge of the ice, the line slacked and he lost the fish. the walleye were proving to be elusive, so needless to say we did not make that mistake again.
our warm days were capped with clear, cold and starry nights. our dinners of battered and fried catch of the day sided with beans or potatoes. cribbage games were played under the warm glow of the propane gas mantle and stove top popped corn was eaten next to the crackle of the fire contained in the barrel stove.
the mercury in the thermometer hanging outside the cabin is beginning to drop, and a cold wind is starting to blow...