Journal 2002

Our party consisted of my son, Josh, and myself. We booked an 8 day trip with our outfitter, The Moose Bay Company, for May 31 through June 7, 2002. We started with a shuttle ride to Prairie Portage Canadian Customs Station. We took our place in line and visited with others who were also anxious to get started. After we cleared customs, we got back into the tow boat and rode for 40 minutes to our drop off at Back Bay. Our trip was the same route as we took in 2000 except it was only Josh and I and it was lengthened by two days. We proceeded up Basswood Lake and down Basswood River and finally camped on Moose Bay for the first night. Early the next morning we fished a bit, saw a nice moose on the lake shore, and then headed up the Tuck River into Robinson Lake. As we paddled down the middle of Robinson, we trolled Shad Raps in hopes of catching lake trout. Shortly thereafter, my rod was bending and I reeled in my first ever lake trout that measured about 23 inches long. We proceeded down the lake and were happy to see that the five star campsite out on the peninsula was vacant. We quickly claimed it and set up our base camp. While picking up our food pack, the main strap broke where it is riveted into the back. I was fortunate to bring along a large needle and nylon cord and made an emergency repair that worked just fine. Over the next several days we fished the north end of Robinson where we caught several nice smallmouth bass on beds. We portaged into the "No Name" lake leading into Nub and also fished Nub. Nub was by far the best fishing lake on this trip. I caught my first 20 inch smallmouth here. We also caught several big pike and saw a moose with her young calf. The next couple days we portaged into the "No Name" lake leading into Tuck and also fished Tuck. As we portaged back into Robinson from Tuck, Josh caught a beautiful 20 inch smallmouth on a pearl colored fluke near the portage trail. We continued to catch several more lake trout during our 5 days on Robinson. We caught a total of 9 lake trout with the largest being 27 inches. On day 6 we headed back down the Tuck River and up the Basswood River. When we got to Lower Basswood Falls, we portaged around it and set our canoe down at the head of the falls. There was a teenage boy there and I started up a conversation with him. I learned that he was part of a scout group from Gillette, Wyoming and he told me about a mishap that had just happened an hour or so before we got there. Their group was also portaging around the falls. A scout leader and two boys put their canoe in above the falls and started heading upstream and were not paying close enough attention and the current of the river swept them backwards and their canoe went down the falls backwards with them in it. If you have ever seen these falls, you would understand the seriousness of what took place. All three came out alive. One scout had a bruised thigh and the canoe some minor damage but nothing serious. All three were wearing their PFDs. To this day it is still hard for me to believe that someone went down those falls and survived. We continued up to Basswood Lake and camped two nights on an island near the mouth of Ranger Bay. We fished this area with only moderate success. We had no wind or rain for the first six days of our trip. On day 7 the wind pickup up and Basswood Lake had big whitecaps. On day 8 we woke up around 4:00AM, ate breakfast and loaded up our canoe. The weather had not changed and Basswood Lake was full of whitecaps. I was concerned because we knew we had to make it to Back Bay for our pickup. We pushed off at 6:00AM and paddled around islands in an attempt to get out of the wind and hugged the bank where we were forced to paddle in the whitecaps. With every stoke of the paddle we watched the front of the canoe and at what angle the canoe hit the oncoming waves. It was certainly white knuckle time and a time that tested our canoeing skills. We paddled straight into a heavy headwind for a solid three hours. We finally got out of the wind and even had time to fish as we neared Back Bay. Our outfitter was right on schedule and took us back to The Moose Bay Company. During our trip we saw three moose, several deer, beavers, and eagles. We released every fish except one walleye that we age for supper. We showered up and had a wonderful meal that evening in the lodge. We spent the night in the cabins and headed south the next morning to Arkansas.