Day Trip to Whiz Lake
During the week, we took a "short" day trip to Whiz Lake. On the DNR website I had noticed that it said that Whiz Lake was 40 feet deep. However, it also said that basically the only fish in it were suckers. I couldn't believe that a lake that deep would only have suckers, so I convinced Carlos and Lorenzo to go there.
The map shows that there are portages into that lake-there aren't. We had to bushwhack our way first into Bow Lake and then into Whiz Lake. It was very tough work, and I pretty much had a mutiny on my hands again. I don't think either Carlos or Lorenzo has anything good to say about that trip. But we did it. After getting into Whiz Lake, we stopped and ate lunch. Then we tried fishing the lake. We didn't get a single bite. I tried dropping a jig down to see how deep the lake was. It was extremely windy that day, though, so we couldn't keep the canoe still long enough to get an accurate reading. However, I never touched bottom, so I have to believe the DNR website on both counts-that it is deep and has no fish.
Day Trip to Fishdance Lake
On another day, we took a trip to Fishdance Lake to see the pictographs. There was one portage around some rapids. However, the portage was a little "deceiving." When we were going to Fishdance, we heard the rapids and saw on the left what we thought was the portage. We unloaded everything and started down the trail. It was muddy, narrow, and winding-definitely the hardest 20 rod portage I've ever been on. After we finally were able to put in again and get going, we passed the rapids-and what do we see? A well-worn, straight, wide highway right next to the rapids. We didn't make the mistake of taking the wrong trail on the way back.
The closer we got to Fishdance, the more people we saw. When we got to the cliff, there was actually a line of canoes waiting to see the pictographs. We waited our turn, and then got to see them. After seeing the paintings, we all thought,
Ehh. It probably wasn't worth all the effort to just see the pictographs.
We went and ate lunch on a peninsula on the lake and then went out fishing. This is where Carlos had some good luck. Then we saw a nice thunderhead rolling in. We took shelter at a nearby campsite until the thunder and lightening passed through. It was still raining, but at least it wasn't lightening.
Carlos with a bass on Fishdance
As we left Fishdance, there was a family fishing in the narrows. They said that they had been having good luck on the walleyes there. We fished around there for a while. We caught a few small walleyes, but not anything worth keeping. Carlos fished at the rapids at the portage on the way back and caught a nice bass that we had for dinner.
