After a 4 year hiatus due to covid and covid related manifestos, it was nice to get back.  I made up for it with 3 trips.  The first being a BH entry slumming around my typical haunts - Quetico, Cirrus, Jean.  Late June for 6 days with one of my boys just fishing and taking our own sweet time doing whatever we wanted.  No electronics or camera on this trip.  Mostly going by memory on hot-spots but wouldn't have needed the locater anyway.  Plenty of fish without trouble.  Weather was good with a few rain delays and only 1 serious windy day that kept us off the water.  BH ranger station remains unstaffed.  Not sure of the reason but I hear it's an MNR/1st Nation dispute.

Second trip was mid-July during the new moon.  6 days with 3 of the boys going in at Pickeral and down to Rawn.  First night at The Pines, 3 nights on Rawn (mid-lake island site) and 2 nights at the Riviera.  Again, no electronics but I did get to use a newly acquired GoPro camera, which is pretty cool.  Kids made it fun by taking turns wearing a Nacho Libre luchador mask in public places along the way.  Again, fishing was excellent and the only human contact was between the Pines and Dawson.

Third trip was a last-minute mid-life crisis  ;D solo trip to BH. 4 days, 3 nights on the western end of the lake August 2-5.  Weather was great, no bugs.  If I wasn't fishing I was reading.  Northern lights every night.  Hoping to get 1 more trip with the wife before our school schedule revs up.

No alcohol on any of these trips.  Been sober since January which has been great.  Sobriety has its challenges but thankfully there is a local church basement with bad coffee for that.   ;)

Here's a few pics.  My kids are goofballs and they had to purchase disposable cameras at the FF Walmart hence the weathered exposures.
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Impressive smallie PJ - surprised you can hold it up with one hand!  Congrats on getting back out in the woods x3 this season.  Especially congrats on ditchin' the booze - hope it works out for ya.

pd

Our group of six solo paddlers (Wally13, Jimmar, MagicPaddler, DD, & Quenton) essentially did your Trip #2 in the latter part of June.  Windy, windy, windy.  We did catch fish from (& right around) camp but opportunities to do much otherwise were scarce.  While we had more than our share of challenges, ours paled in comparison to those experienced by two other solo paddlers (PineKnot and Kingfisher) who had planned to hook up with us... but those are their tales to tell.  Suffice it to say, neither came anywhere near crossing our path due to significant misfortunes and just plain bad luck.

As I know you know, those Q trips with your boys are priceless, PJ.  My boys & I are pretty much spread out across the country, now.  I still fancy getting together with them up there some summer soon.  Right now, the best I can do is to have them join me in the Florida Keys in a few months... and, as nice as that might sound, for me it is NO SUBSTITUTE.  So, I'm envious.

Hang tough & enjoy. 

Jimbo   8-) 


P.S. There are times on those Q trips - usually either at dawn or dusk - I recall you telling me once to imagine someone playing "Amazing Grace" on the pipes somewhere away in the misty distance. 

Thanks for that engaging imagery....   

Thanks for the trip report PJ  [smiley=cool.gif]
I understand the frustration of things beyond your control keeping you away from the Q.

  I hope more people do trip reports with some pics even if the trips were their versions of my FUBAR trip.

Misery loves company plus they say it builds character.  ;) ;D

Helluva a smallie too!

PS, It appears you've lost some weight? Looking good with the facial hair too  ;) ;D

Envious! Both that you got in a few trips and that you got to spend quality time with your boys. I miss taking trips with my boys. It’s all but impossible now since one lives in Germany and the other in Guatemala. It doesn’t surprise me you had success fishing where we had little. The weather may have stabilized by then or it could be that you’re just a good fisherman. You were in one of my favorite areas of the park. I still remember meeting you and your boys on Quetico Lake a few years back when I was solo in my kayak.

Here's a few more pics.  My kids are goofballs and they had to purchase disposable cameras at the FF Walmart hence the weathered exposures.
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Now I've seen everything, that Nacho Libre luchador mask is just insane  :-? ::) ;D ;D

I also wanted to mention . . . every fish, EVERY fish my youngest kid caught was on a Rapala J9 Gold.  He never took it off or fished with anything else whether it was 3 feet or 30 feet of water.  Out-fished all of us.  For a while there on Pickeral I thought he might catch a fish-per-cast.  Just FYI.

Those pictures look great, reminds me of the print pictures dad still has of his trips in the eighties. Glad you were able to get out, and as a son who didn't get introduced to Quetico until my twenties (grateful I was at all don't get me wrong 😂), love to see this! Hoping maybe at least one of my daughters may show interest in a few years both love being in the canoe and getting out. Wife pretty well says she'll stick to day tripping, told her maybe one day a fly in and she can set up shop in a cabin and I'll take some short excursions 😂😁

My old man will be 74 next week, we'll be heading in at Stanton third week of September. High water, we're hoping to get down the deux and go to Russell, maybe swing by over and up to Lonely, and back out deux.

Long have I wished I didn't have about twenty hours between myself and there, or I could likely pull off more than annual trips..

PhantomJug wrote on Aug 27^th, 2024 at 2:44pm:

I also wanted to mention . . . every fish, EVERY fish my youngest kid caught was on a Rapala J9 Gold.  He never took it off or fished with anything else whether it was 3 feet or 30 feet of water.  Out-fished all of us.  For a while there on Pickeral I thought he might catch a fish-per-cast.  Just FYI.

;)