Of Wind, Water, & Wilderness
Bill Kuntze
My belief was that Quetico Lake offered as good an opportunity as any to connect with my first canoe country lake trout. I had stared at a map of this lake every week of the spring season as the snow melted from the yard of my Michigan home. My reasoning had concluded that trolling a trout lure twelve miles through the depths of this lake was statistically sufficient to place it in front of a cooperative fish. The day of fulfillment now arriving, it would be only a matter of guiding the canoe over the most likely locations.
We paddled along an imaginary line that would keep us both far enough from shore to avoid snagging bottom while yet close enough to take advantage of whatever structure existed below. The stiff west wind, present since the early morning, pushed us along from behind. The drift alone would provide a trolling rate of speed equivalent to that of a relaxed walk. John's strokes from the bow were enough by themselves. My efforts were more on keeping the canoe straight in the quartering tendency of the waves. We settled into a comfortable pace. Two other groups we had met at the portage had now gone by us, also in route to Jean Lake, opting for travel along the southern shoreline.
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