Wednesday started off cool and mostly cloudy, and we left the cabin with what seemed like a sense of urgency at 8:30. We headed north to Jack's Point and caught a few walleyes, including one I caught which was over 20 inches - tying Larry for the day's record. He thought we should try a different spot while the walleye were biting, so we moved and didn't have as much luck the rest of the day. Larry caught a 28 1/2 inch Northern and thought it would be the prize for the day, until Barry caught a 29 1/2 Northern a short while later.
While we were out, the sky cleared up and most of the day we had a lot of puffy clouds all at the same altitude - what Dad would call a Canadian sky if he saw it at home. It was dry and beautiful all day. The sun grew warm later in the afternoon and I took off some layers. Throughout the day we saw five or more eagles, several loons, a flock of pelicans, a few gulls, and a duck landing on the lake.
We went back in around 3:00 and cleaned our catch, then stuffed ourselves with a late lunch/early dinner. Barry and I drove about 7 km up the road to New Osnaburgh to search in vain for the little store we heard about there. It was interesting to see the tiny community, even though we missed finding the store by half a block.
We went out again at 6:00, specifically to cast for Northern. We headed to a bay that another Larry told us about before he left to go home to Wyoming. Larry happened to catch his big walleye there, but the rest of us caught Northern. While I was reeling in one cast, I had the lure within site - about 6 ft from the boat - when I watched a fish come to the surface and take it. It was a fighter; a lot of fun to catch. We got him in the boat and measured him in the little lined trough we had in the boat. It was over 30 inches and longer than the trough, so we put him up to the ruler on the side of the boat: 31 1/2 inches! The largest so far and the prize for the day. I was trying to figure out why it seemed so much longer when we used the other ruler, and only then (on day 4!) did I realize the trough didn't start at "0." As it turns out, all of fish were half an inch longer than we thought they were!
Dad did not have such a great evening. First he cast one of his favorite lures onto the shore and we couldn't find it. Then the boat motor wasn't idling and he spent a considerable amount of time trying to get that to work right so we could troll. Then he cut his finger on my big fish and nearly bled out in the back of the boat while he tended to it. He probably had problems with his line and reel, as that's been a consistent theme this week. At one point, his pole came apart and half of it ended up in the lake. I think he finally caught a fish - nothing memorable.
We went in at 7:30 as the sun was setting. We had to clean Larry's walleye, so while we did we had the opportunity to chat with Tim from Montana and Mike from Wisconsin, two of the four brothers staying in the other cabin. They had better fishing than they had on their first two days and had plenty to eat.
When we got back to the cabin, we found a delicious homemade blueberry pie waiting for us, along with vanilla ice cream, complements of Colette. It was delicious! Tiny little hand-picked blueberries from the property here, but very tasty.
We played more Pitch before going to bed fairly early. I lost.
I'm posting a photo of my fish. I hope it's not upside down... on my phone it looks like it might be.
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