Don & I had been camping together these last few years but not done a paddle trip, so here we go... Weather was going to be a factor so we headed as soon as we got up to Fall Lake, We reached the first campsite that was on our possibile sites to use and called it, we were pooped. Turned out to be a nice site even though it wasn't the offical site, that was around the corner which had the fire grate... But that sucked, very rocky and no where nice to setup our tents so we used the point. Setup camp and Don said well I think I'll throw a line out just for shits & giggles and after about 10 minutes he asked me where his bobber was... Bingo, the first fish of the trip, a very nice walleye, then another and another... Wow looks like we won't have to paddle anywhere to fish, this is great. At that point I gave it a try and I ended up with a little guy. We threw them all back thinking tomorrows another day and we have lots of time to fish over the next ten days. Well after that weather front passed over us that first night the walleyes moved out and never came back to our site, but we did have lots of action paddling around the near by islands. We had fun fishing for sure. Gale force winds locked us down a few times that week, I had never experianced anything like it, thank god the trees held up around us.
Lots of wild life in that area, a family of otters swam by almost every night, beavers behind us in the little cove woke us up a lot slapping the water in ther middle of the night, Don swore a moose was walking in the water one night, which really freaked him out, but I think it was those busy beavers... Who knows? One niice day we paddled down to the Upper Falls and hiked around there for a bit, other than that we just fished & ate a lot of good grub. With a couple of days left in the trip I noticed the wind was blowing in our favor and asked Don what he thought about heading back to the first portage going back, days earlier the wind was coming from the south and with a total of 13 miles ahead of us, having the wind at our backs sounded pertty good to me, and he agreed. So we packed up and got to Pipestone Fall and stayed up on the hill nearest the falls. Lugging our gear up the hill to that site sucked but but it tured out to be OK, and the fishing near the falls was great. Both nights the temps got into the mid and lower 20's... I forgot to mention say that my sleeping pad had failed and the last 7 nnights I was on the hard cold ground, my back & hips were shot. I guess I was trying to forget about that deal.
So we stayed there for the last couple of nights, had a big walleye dinner... Seen a couple 40 plus inch Pike get pulled in buy a group of fisherman, got scared at the shitter by a large buck snorting at me the first morning... Did it to Don also.... lol Good times, nothing like having a large wild animal making noise at you with your pants down.
The rest of the paddle out wasn't the greatest, once we got to the Fall Lake side of the portage we were met by three foot rollers, so it was a workout getting to the landing, but we made it without getting wet, thats always a good deal.
