The great north woods; nothing better!

Ahhhh, a nice relaxing weekend spent deep in the northern part of Minnesota! What more could we ask for? More smallies like the one I'm holding would have been perfect but the fishing..as I've said before has been pretty spotty this summer.

This little fella weighed three lbs. I caught a couple of two pounders, and some other small ones. I chuckle when I see this pic only because I have such a goofy look...what is that? But then I hate pics.

Oh my handsome hubby didn't have nearly the luck I was having with the smallies. He caught a few two pounders but by our last day he was pretty disappointed; after all, the lake we were on is a trophy small mouth lake =( .

On our last morning we wanted to use up the rest of the minnows before we headed out in hopes we would catch one last fish for the road. I caught another small mouth weighing in at about two pounds. Pat on the other hand had his rod on the dock and was doing something and his rod started to take off....he had no idea his bobber had disappeared. After what he thought was a fight with a small mouth, to his surprise this long northern saw him on that dock and took off! It gave him a great fight while I was running all over trying to get a net. We didn't have any of our tackle or anything so we estimated this snake weighed upwards of 4 1/2 lbs. And look at that little shit eater on his face! He's smirking not only because of the catch but also because he got to show it off to three very awe struck little boys who were aspiring fisherman!

It was a really fantastic weekend. We went camping. The drive took us seven hours on the way up and it went along the North Shore for most of it. Him and I were both so anxious to get out of here that we did something that we haven't done since we were amateur campers. Forgot a TON of things. Pillows, chairs, and even worse, the bag with all our shower stuff! There were a few other minor things but nothing as valuable as those things we forgot!

We had to make four or five stops on the way up just to shop! Of course we wanted to give the truck a rest but at least two of those stops could have been avoided....we laughed and chalked it up to being so excited to fish and camp and just to get away together!

On the last leg of the journey we turned off the main road onto the Gunflint Trail. Upon seeing the scenery and oohing and ahhing over the amazing beauty, a couple of little fox scurrying down the side of the road, I stopped and thought for a moment. Bears, moose oh my. I looked at Pat and said, "Lets turn around now!" Of course I was kidding but neither of us had ever camped so deep in the woods before. Of course he was telling me the moose were worse than the bear...nervous ninny kicking in I had five minutes of regret for the choice of destination! But man, it was just too pretty to worry about all that!

We set up camp like we had done it just yesterday. It was getting dark by the time we got there so that was a challenge. We were both starving, frustrated that it was getting dark so soon, we still wanted to get the boat in the water, and exhausted from the long drive. But when it was all done, we ate, sat and had a beer and then attempted to find our way around the very dark campground. We found the bathroom and I forgot to mention we grabbed our fishing poles because we wanted to fish off the dock since it was too dark to go explore in the boat.

The act of fishing was my only reason for fishing...put a pole in my hands, a beer at my side and a dock to sit on and I find myself in a place I found great comfort in as a child. Never did I expect to catch anything. Well, I did but was so shocked at the fight of that pig that I barely set the hook and when I got it to the dock, I was afraid to pull it out of the water. I must confess, I've always, always had a quirk about fishing at night. Anyway, just when I was mustering the nerve to pull this unfamiliar fish from the water it shook the hook and escaped. I was secretly relieved which I later admitted to Pat but that was the first official small mouth bass of the weekend. It was probably two to three lbs but I will never know for certain. Over the weekend I soon got over that quirk after catching a couple more at night.

There definitely is something to be said for the fight a smallmouth bass puts up! It's every fisherman's dream. A two pounder fights as great as a five pound large mouth and the smallies are a much denser fish and well? I certainly would love it if we could find some more of those little monsters!!! They were a fun fish to fight!

It was tough to leave that last day. Thankfully the weather sucked where we were at..windy, raining off and on. The temp was ok but cloudy and icky always makes it so much easier to come home. Although after we got in Duluth, the weather was worse. It was 89 degrees in Duluth--unheard of! It was miserable! But with two hours left before we got home, the temps barely mattered. The time spent at a beautiful place with a great husband is more than I could have ever asked for!

A big THANK YOU to our friends T and J for introducing us to this place! The dock is the place!!!!!! lol