Boundary Waters vacation, days 1 and 2

I have just returned from my annual trip to Hungry Jack Outfitters and Cabins near Grand Marais, MN with Jane, my best friend for 30-some years.

We left Friday and drove as far as Chippewa Falls, where we met our friends Pat and Julie for dinner and Connell’s Supper Club. Julie had read about their legendary onion rings on the website and requested a half order, which turned out to be enough to feed about 15 people. It was fish fry night. Pat asked for his fish fried while Jane and Julie got broiled. I don’t like fish. I had ribs. The baked potatoes must have weighed close to two pounds. After all the onion rings, I ate two ribs and two bites of potatoes and took the rest with me in a carryout box. We’d find room in a cooler somehow.

The Art Festival was in full swing when we got to Grand Marais on Saturday afternoon. There were cars everywhere. And it was hot! We came up to get away from the heat. The forecast had been for highs in the 60’s and lows in the 50’s. I packed long underpants, for heaven’s sake.

We were lucky enough to find a parking place near Sydney’s. I got in line for the cones while Jane went around to see if our bench by the lake was available. She came back shaking her head. The bench was gone! Our bench! Gone! Sydney’s had expanded their indoor dining room and replaced our bench with an impossibly low bench across the front of the building. We walked across the street and ate at a picnic table overlooking the harbor.

Jane and I got to the cabin at 4:00. It was 84°. We worked up a sweat unloading the car. We drank big glasses of water followed by big glasses of grapefruit margarita. Jane made steak on the grill while I used the leftover baked potato from the previous night’s supper for hash browns. I peeled one of the cucumbers I’d brought from the garden and mixed it with the leftover sour cream that had come with the baked potato.

Saturday supper: grilled steak, hash browns, cucumbers in sour cream

The next morning, I made blueberry pancakes with peaches on top.

Sunday breakfast: blueberry pancakes with peaches, maple syrup, and bacon

Thinking that it might be hot later in the day, I made peach and blueberry cobbler with the cream scones I’d brought.

Peach and blueberry cobbler

After breakfast, we got our fishing licenses (now $44, up from $39 last year)

I put leeches on our hooks and immediately got a perch. It swallowed the hook. I hate that. I couldn’t get the hook out, so I handed it over to Jane. She managed to free the fish, and it swam away sideways. Still, not an immediate kill.

It’s bad to have the first fish swallow the hook. It leaves me rattled and less than enthusiastic about fishing. But it was the first fish, and it didn’t seem right to quit. Soon we both lost our leeches. Jane switched to a twister tail. I put on another leech, which I quickly lost. After the fish incident, the leeches were creeping me out more than usual. I don’t ever catch anything on a twister tail, but then I wasn’t that keen on catching anything. Jane was getting lots of strikes on her line, so I too put on a twister tail. I got strikes, but no fish on the line.

“I think maybe the tail is blocking my hook,” I observed.

“You are supposed to move it up so it catches on the barb on the jighead,” Jane answered. “It’s supposed to keep the tail from falling off.”

I took a good look at the jighead, and by God, there was a little barb on it. If I had noticed it before, I had assumed it was an unintentional and functionless artifact of manufacture. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” I asked. Jane was the person who first introduced me to twister tails.

Twister tails on jigheads: Top, right; bottom, wrong

“I thought you knew. Aren’t there directions on the package?”

“’I thought you knew,’” I said mockingly. “I learned to fish with bare hooks and worms. How would I know?”

“I’m sorry I held back on you all these years.”

Dang--there are directions on the package. Note: NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

Well. With the tail correctly positioned, I caught a good-sized bass. “Take a picture!” I told Jane. “It might be the best fish we catch all week.”

Not-so-bad bass

I followed that up with another little perch.

Small perch

And a very tiny perch that was hooked from the outside of its lower lip in. I’m not sure how that happened.

Ridiculously tiny perch that was hooked from the outside in

Jane continued to land nothing. We fished until noon and then went up for lunch.

That was it for excitement/activity for the day We took showers and hung out on the deck enjoying the cool breeze. It was, thankfully, much more pleasant than the day before. We opened a bottle of wine. I made steak quesadillas for supper.

Steak quesadilla on the smaller plates

We played games after dinner, forcing ourselves to stay awake until 8:45. My, we are getting old.