We took a bunch of weekend trips this month, two of which were camping trips to the NHAL. The earlier weekend, we camped on our usual site on the Manitowish River, and the second weekend we camped at the Starrett Lake campground next door to Sean’s brother and his family.
Our first weekend was June 2/3. The Manitowish was actually a little bit busy when we were there, with sites 14 and 15 occupied. We headed for our favorite site and found it empty (save for a beaver who had just then felled a tree at the site and went charging into the water when we startled him!), so we set up camp for the night. I was a bit concerned about the forecast of rainy weather and thunderstorms for Saturday, but we only got a short drizzle in the morning while we were fishing for crappie and then a really brief storm in the afternoon that made for great napping weather in the tent. The crappie were mostly only active in the early morning, and we caught a few on our micro-perch rapala lures. They seemed to be more interested in the fire tiger pattern, not too surprising in that dark stained water. We had visitors in the form of a flock of about seven trumpeter swans, who Sean once said sound like middle school band practice. We also saw the tiniest snapping turtle near our fire ring, whose shell was only about the size of a quarter. On Saturday morning we saw a pair of otters swim by as well. It’s a fun stretch of river where you can see a lot of wildlife.
The next day I was really feeling the urge to catch a whole pile of panfish, so I suggested that we go check out Frank Lake. We had shore-fished from the landing the year before and had a lot of fun with small bluegills. Frank is a very pretty, larger lake with no development on it, and only electric motors are allowed. Its parking area is uphill from the beach landing and there’s no way to drive all the way to the landing, but it’s a very easy portage to the shore from the car. Because of this and it being fairly tucked away, we’ve not seen too much traffic on it. Frank Lake was FULL of spawning beds when we got out on it, but I think we were a few days too late and they were all abandoned. However, we decided to try our luck, and started exploring since we had never been on Frank with Old Ironsides before. I was casting along the shore with a worm and bobber, when something much bigger than a bluegill hit hard! It ended up being the largest smallmouth I had ever boated, so that was pretty fun! Sean was casting wacky-rigged soft bait worms for smallmouth and ended up with a very nice keeper-sized walleye, which we decided would be coming back with us. So, we never did end up with those panfish, but we had a pretty fun couple of hours out on Frank.
The next weekend, June 17/18, we were car camping at the Starrett Lake campground. We brought some extra luxury stuff that we don’t normally bring, like our big comfy folding chairs and the big cooler. We were in walk-in site #10, which is smaller, but nice and isolated from the main camp and has a spot right on Starrett Lake to park your canoe. My in-laws and family took #9, which is their favorite. Site 11 was overgrown with knee-high grass and no lake view. We were blanked on Starrett during our morning fishing jaunt on Saturday, but we have had good luck there in the past catching northern pike with spoons. After breakfast, we decided to head over to Frank Lake again, because it’s right next door to Starrett. We ended up having it to ourselves and a family of loons the whole day, and it was beautiful weather with only a light breeze. The loon pair on Frank Lake had chicks, which was amazing! We did accidentally get between them when the adults swam under our canoe – they let us know how much they did not like that, and we worked fast to get out of the way! We fished in the morning and caught both largemouth and smallmouth bass on soft baits, and then found a good spot to eat a shore lunch. Clearly there are a couple of spots where locals frequent. Since it was getting kind of warm, we grabbed our snorkeling gear from the car and explored a bit under the water. Lots of fun sights to see under there!
We had hot dogs for dinner and tried fishing out at the Plum Lake pier, but a rainstorm started coming in and the wind got nasty, so we gave up fast. The whole night stayed rainy and then it stayed gloomy and rainy the next morning as well, so we went into Boulder Junction for breakfast at the Granary (very busy, but good food). It didn’t clear up, so we decided to pack up wet and hit the road.
Photos by Sean, full album here.
Tippy Canoe Tales 