Saturday, August 26, 2017

Burntwood Lake II - 2003

     Logic dictated our next move and proved beyond any doubt that logic is not always right, at least if it's spawned from my brain. Back at the Gogal Air office in Snow Lake we'd been given a sketchy map of Burntwood Lake showing where the shore lunch sites were. To me that meant there was a walleye hot spot nearby. That'd been the case on last year's Claw Lake trip and from what I'd heard from a few old timers, was a pretty common practice. Made sense. The fillets don't get much fresher than if they were swimming in water ten minutes before they were swimming in lard. Adding icing to our cake was the river that entered no more than a couple hundred yards to the east. How could we go wrong?
     The paddle down the big lake drew my attention. To that point we'd not seen a whitecap. In fact we'd been spoiled to the point of feeling set up for the inevitable hammer blow. I'm from Minnesota and we know for certain everything balances out over time. Even though Burntwood was broken up by many points and islands, should the wind kick it up from the east or west there was enough open water to prove a danger. Though we were again under bluebird skies with a gentle breeze to our tail I continually scanned the shores in case we had to bail out. Call that wisdom or cowardice, I didn't much care either way. We were still completely on our own though the lodge was less than a dozen miles away. Should something happen it'd be a long, long time before anyone found our raven-picked bones.
     The river emptied into a long bay protected by a reef. Had there been any lake trout in the lake this would have proved fertile ground. The water was still cold enough to keep them in the shallows where even buffoons could catch them. Midway down we passed a small cabin in a freshly mowed meadow. Looked clean as a whistle and well maintained. Ten years later I placed the building on an island in Wedge Lake in a chapter called The Man Who Isn't There. A quarter mile farther we came on a smooth shelf landing, slid ashore, and were home for the last two nights of our trip. Odd thing was I hoped we weren't trespassing. For all I knew the owner of the little cabin owned the slab we camped on and might call the Mounties on us.
     We had us a campsite god, a protector of sorts. Someone had been here before and had placed a pike skull on a lower tree branch, for what reason I don't know. But she was an impressive skull all right. I don't know about you but I have a hard time estimating a fish's size with nothing but a bone as a guide. Since I have no idea I'll say it was a thirty pounder for sure. Killer of a fish. Would've been nice had we caught anything approaching that size though we did boat a ten pounder.
     Let's just say the fishing in the bay was slow. Had we been fishing for food we'd have done okay and would've even thrown a few back. No complaints, it was a fine spot. On the second day we even had visitors in the form of a brace of boats with guides and sports aboard. A few passing words told us our fishing luck had been about the same as their's, a few walleyes here and a couple of pike there but in nowhere near the numbers they'd come to expect. Though we offered to point out where Allan and I'd hammered them two days earlier the guides showed little interest in motoring another eight miles up lake. We wished them luck and said we'd come visit in another day.
     Like I said, we did explore and did fish. About the only moment of consequence was a confused pike. More from boredom than anything else I'd rigged a jig and twister tail and suspended the pair six feet below a slip bobber. Twenty minutes of casting and bobber bouncing passed with no action. Could be the pike I riled up was as bored as me and slammed the bobber like a floating piece of candy. Had that happen a number of times with bass but then bass'll try to swallow anything they can wrap their mouths around. I did get a few seconds fight out of her, yeah the pike was big enough to be a female and dumb enough to be a male, before she spit the bobber. That was fun in an odd kind of way but it caught me by surprise when she slammed the bobber again on the next cast. Figuring the third time's the charm I shortened the knot till the jig was tight to the bobber, kind of made it into a bob-areno, or a hula-bobber. Long story short I hooked up and got a short fight before the jig hook straightened. Sorry, that's not much of a fishing story but that's all I've got from those two days.

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