On the map, while tracing fingers, the distance is 15.7 miles as the crow flies. Paddling that serpentine causeway is a total of 22 miles. Five portages under 11 rods, one of a 109 rods, yup that’s the one that stalls river traffic and even for the Boundary Waters, it’s a big river, that runs many miles further, but the magic 22, is a walleye, moose viewing, northern pike tackle smashing mecca.
At the first portage, he unloads his wife, his two very young children, he secures their gear, sits in the stern seventeen feet away from the bow, and shoots the rapids looking much like a surfer riding a wave off Malibu. He made it look easy. Then he hooks and lands in the very same tail out, a stunner walleye.
Halfway down, same course as his, not to be outdone by some young whipper snapper, I got hung up on an unseen rock. Oh, I pushed against it, tried to scooch over it, and then I did a slight levitation trick whereby I just hopped up in the canoe, Mother Nature did the rest, I was once again flowing downstream. I collected Mrs. we paddled off to catch up and then Mrs. hooks a leviathan pike, as we were unhooking it, she said I was sure scared you might tip over in those rapids, I said, what a coincidence, so was I.
--The trout whisperer
