Today’s word: PROTRACTED. What a monumental day. Chad was excited to start his first full day. He was straight into the routine: up at 5:30 to get in the water just after sunrise. We had 34 miles planned today and he was an eager beaver.

Since Chad got on the river we hadn’t seen a human. It’s funny how you can go for days on this river and see signs of civilization, but never see a person, let alone interact. It’s unnerving at times, and we joked about the zombie apocalypse having wiped out all the people. I wondered if that were the case, how would we procreate the human species. But with Chad’s big brain an my problem solving skills, I was confident we would figure it out.

About 4 hours into the day, we hit the town of Palisade, MN – my first “run into town for some things”! It felt sort of odd walking from the boat landing to the Palisade One Stop, but I was relieved to see the town relatively free of zombies. I felt like a kid in a candy store in the small grocery. I immediately gravitated toward some cans of Chef-Boyardee ravioli, but Chad shook his head in disgust. But just up the shelf to the right something caught Chad’s eye – instant potatoes to have as a side dish with our expected fish fry dinner! (No, I’m not making this up and I didn’t prompt Mr. Potato Chad!) The box required adding milk and butter, which sounded like it would be a relatively delicious side dish, but there’s no home for dairy on the kayak, so Chad had to pass on the potatoes.

We bought some more PBJ ingredients and a little more fishing tackle and moseyed back to the boat landing. There we chatted with another kayaker, Ben, who’s been paddling this river in various areas for 30 years. He’s completed the source-to-sea journey before, and is planning to complete it now after putting in near Bemidji, but he’s doubtful he’ll make it in these conditions: the lowest and slowest he’s ever seen. He planned to go further today, but instead is unpacking to end in Palisade as it’s already been slow and hot day.

After lunch we were feeling good, we had lots of laughs and great weather, but we also started to encounter a near constant threat of submerged trees and rocks – it was akin to the German’s defenses at Normandy – somebody didn’t want us invading this river. We took a lot of blows from seemingly invisible timber; the river was flowing pretty well, but the evasive maneuvering impeded our progress. We needed to get to camp in time to fish for our dinner, and we had a 34 mile day to complete in order to reach Hassman canoe camp.

We came to one spot in the river where a 300 yard portage could shave off 2 river miles. We stopped to investigate, but again the low water level was our nemesis. We would be able to drag or craft up the hill coming off the river, but it was a near vertical cliff down to the uncharacteristically low water on the other side. No time savings could be had here, so we resumed.

At about 6 o’clock I told Chad that we would tow one boat with gear, and he would peddle and fish from in front of me. when towing one boat didn’t work (note to self for solo section in the future), Chad thought to lash them side by side (I said he was a problem solver). It was difficult but manageable to steer, this would work. Within 5 minutes Chad had one bass on board! We wanted 4, but we said we would settle for 3 as a veritable feast.

After catching two fish in 15-20 minutes – the timber attacked, snagging Chad’s lure and snapping his line. I continued to paddle downstream, knowing we still had miles to go before our camp. Chad put on a new lure, but again go snagged; I spun the boat around and plied it back upstream to release the snag. This happened several more times – we were burning daylight (and not catch fish).

The lumber defenses were getting thicker as the sun descended. With this, Chad got more conservative as the darkness crept in, keep his lure closer to the boat where it won’t likely get snagged. However, at one point he was fishing with his lure 2 feet to my immediate left. I could have reached out and grabbed it. I’m not sure what he thought he would catch there, but his lure was safe from snags being on the surface and 2 feet from the boat. I think Chad needs to bone up in his fishing skills.

Chad again thought he’d change tactics, replacing his lure with a spoon. I caught one fish and hooked 2 more the day before while using a spoon, so Chad went with them same. We floated, paddled and got banged around by trees and the miles to continued to darken. The spoon just didn’t seem to be working, even in areas we were told had a lot of fish. Finally at 8 pm, Chad put away the rod and we started to focus on making our way to camp.

We never found the Hassman camp; we ended up stealth camping on a sandbar on the right bank, across from where the DNR camp should be. we land at 9pm. There was no moon, so I set up tents in the dark while Chad cleaned our 2 fish. It was the best fish we’ve each had in a long time.

As the darkness ensued, and we realized we would be finding and setting up a camp after dark with nearly zero moonlight, a number of “night” songs went through my head – this one recurred a few times and was probably more appropriate than Night Moves or Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting: The Police Here Comes the Night.

Postscript: Rather than put this in tomorrow’s blog, I wanted to close today with a note about last night’s fishing. Upon inspection of the spoon that would catch only logs, Chad proved to support my notion of him having intelligence, but in an absent-minded professor sort of way – he tied the lure on backwards. You fishermen out there will appreciate this photo: