It is a great morning to sleep in then have a real cooked breakfast. Today we will have an omelet instead of the cold cereal or oatmeal that comes on early walleye run mornings.  It is nice to relax over that extra cup of coffee too.  The weather never really improves and the wind picks up making it feel just miserable even at 59F.  We don’t get out on the lake at all today.

We take some time to pursue the other great Wakami/Canada quest, wild blueberries. We find a great patch out the Wakami Dam road and pick about 5 pints.  Your got to see Kent’s picking outfit complete with head net and bear spray!  Mine looks pretty similar…the mosquitoes are formidable.  We eat some fresh berries, freeze some for later treats, and the rest are in the frig for another round of pancakes and best-ever yogurt topping.

We took the opportunity to check out Patricia’s. There are little signs all over camp advertising Patricia’s Bait and Confectionary Shop in Sultan “everything for the fisherman”.  We just had to check it out.  The two story frame house has a full width front porch that is Patricia’s business establishment and is indeed packed full of all kinds of stuff.  Need a reel?  A gasline for your boat?  Minnows?  Ice cream?  Snacks?  Canned goods?  Rope? Ice?  Any kind of lure or tackle?  Little carved bear?  Shear pins for outboard props. They were pretty light on anything I would classify as a confection.  We had a nice chat with “Mr. Patricia” (Patricia left by bus for Toronto this morning to visit her 92 yr old mom).  We didn’t find anything we needed but it is a little town and even strangers get all the gossip and hear a few fishing tales.  It was a fun stop.

Just so you know, they have a 7 bedroom house for rent…sleeps 10 in case anyone is interested in a group outing.

Kent flipped the switch on the bilge pump and all he got was a familiar whirring noise but no water coming out. Not good.  We didn’t get the cover on the boat in a couple of the big rainstorms.  It has about 4” of water in the hull below the floor.  That is an extra 300 pounds or so making her ride a little low and she is sluggish to get up on plane.  The quick solution, take the car and boat trailer down to the ramp, pull the boat just out of the lake, pull the plug….yeah gravity, it always works.  Things drain a bit, Kent replaces the plug, and we re-launch. Kent has added “work on the bilge pump” to his home repairs list but for now all is well.

We got up early and fished all morning but caught nothing; well, unless you count the tiny perch that had been stealing walleye minnows. The lake got choppy, the sky threatening, and we called it a day.  We just settle into the hammock for an afternoon nap when the thunder begins.  The sky darkens and the clouds boil.  Big cold drops plop on the roof.  First it is just a scattered few but before long it grows to a torrential downpour.  The sound lulls us to sleep.  We can nap indoors too.

Not everyone made it back in before the rain. There are wet clothes hanging all over camp.  Sucks to be them.

We tried the trolling thing this morning. Hooray!  I caught two walleye.  They aren’t huge but enough to make a nice mess for supper. Kent grilled them and they are delicious.

The lake was calm all day so we took a couple hours this afternoon to kayak down river through the stickups toward the dam. An otter came to check us out.  Mama loons kept their young ones at a safe distance.  We made it to Trapper Island, about half way to the dam.  It is further than we anticipated.  Maybe we will bring the boat back here some calm day and make it all the way to the dam.  We will see.

We were run off the lake twice today by threatening skies and thunder. This evening there were even some bright bolts of lightening so it was easy to decide to head in.  It is still rumbling as I type.

I got the chance to ask our neighbor (the one who is catching all the big walleye) if he’d share his secret to the great fishing success. He was a bit evasive but gave a big hint; he trolls with small lures and worms rather than float fish with minnows as we have been doing.  We went to try out his approach this evening but that’s when the storm rolled in.  Guess we will have to wait until tomorrow to catch our whoppers.

I made blueberry buckle today….it is still cooling and smells wonderful.

We need milk and bread and a few other things so we gather up and make the 30 mile each way drive into town. Perhaps the biggest motivator is that we used our last minnows and we really would like another mess of walleye.

We hop on wifi at the visitor center and capitalize on the available Verizon signal to check in with everyone. As anticipated, all is well.

The Dominion Family Dinner claims Canadian, Greek and Italian food and it calls our name for lunch. We go for a gyro and turkey club both with fries, but no gravy.  They have pies for dessert that look pretty good but we are just too full….so sad.

We have a few hours before dark so we head out on the lake…only northern again. Guess what, our neighbors came in with a full limit of walleye, 8 very nice fish.   Ack, what are we doing wrong?

Wild blueberry pancakes

Oh so good.

Wild blueberries. We picked about 3 pints.

We enjoyed quite a few hours out on the lake but caught absolutely nothing. It is a little frustrating especially since we have new neighbors in camp and they are catching walleye by the basketful.  We hope to learn their secret, either by asking or by spying…we will see.

We are walleye fishing, that means quietly floating a minnow waiting for a bite, releasing the bail on the rod to “walk the minnow” as the walleye carries it off to some safer place and stops to actually swallow it (and the hook) then you reel it in and set the hook. So, there is lots of waiting, even more than regular fishing. Anyway, Kent gets a tug on his line and begins a minnow walk.  I’m just chilling when, bang, something hits my line hard.  I jerk back (never mind that is not what I was supposed to do while walleye fishing) and set the hook.  I pulled in the fish, but it already had Kent’s minnow in its mouth and lots of line tangled all around it.  What a mess, plus we had that whole “who really caught it” thing going on.  In the end, we put it back so it can grow a little more.

Since the walleye aren’t interested and the northern seem to be, we troll for a while in Roger’s Bay. The four small fish we catch and release offer some entertainment and other critters show up to share the afternoon.  A loon is floating in the center of the bay chirping softly.  As she moves, two little ones appear from under her wings.  Two eagles crisscross the sky and vie for the best perch.  The loon calls in alarm whenever they move near her.  There is a noisy scuffle between eagles and gulls.  It was a fun afternoon.

We take a quiet before dinner paddle around Brown’s Bay shallows. Red wing blackbirds do their noisy thing.  A kingfisher watches all from his high perch.  A cluster of diving ducks bobs and dives in search of tasty morsels below.

We end the day with campfire on the shore. Loons call; sometimes plaintive other times more like a laugh. A family of otters playfully makes its way just off shore in front of camp.  No campfire is complete without s’mores, of course.

We are up at 6:15 and don’t take long to be ready to head out. It is grey and cool but the forecast is not for rain so here we go.  Wrong again weatherman, we got out to a far bay and just anchored when the first peel of thunder rolled in.  Maybe it will blow around?  Yes?  Nope.  Better call it and we headed back in just in front of the rainstorm. Kent got wettest as he rode facing the rain and got the worst of the splashes from the wind induced whitecaps we cut through.   We are safely back in camp and spent much of the cool misty day indoors.  Evening it cleared and turned beautiful again so we gave walleye fishing a try.  No luck.  We had hotdogs for dinner (pigs in a blanket but hotdogs just the same).