Six Days Camping in the Deep Wilderness - Catch and Cook my Dinner

Today I'm heading up north to the boundary waters of Minnesota and Canada. I've got enough stuff packed for the next six days. Food, clothes, and shelter. And I'm going to be fishing, cooking, and camping out on a lake that you can only portage into by canoe. So right now we're in the beautiful town of Grand Marais. Feels like just yesterday I was here with the bug, but now we're here with the big truck and a lot more gear. Though today our adventure does not end here. We are driving up the Gunflint Trail into the boundary waters of Minnesota. But we're going to be going to see our outfitter, rent in a canoe, and then we're going to be getting dropped off in the middle of the forest. We're going to be portaging our way across three lakes to spend the night for the next five days. We have now officially left Grand Marais and are on the Gunflint Trail. This is the main road that connects Minnesota to all of the Canadian boundary waters. The state puts a lot of effort behind educating people that come camping up here on what's proper camping etiquette. And this is one of the places that you go camping where it just feels like it hasn't been touched before, so it's really special. So 45 minutes up the trail and here we go. All packed up. Ended up packing up into two packs so I can tie this bag up in a tree so bears can't get after it. Because of the route that I'm taking, I'm actually getting dropped off into the woods and I'm going to be canoeing my way back around 20 to 30 miles one direction. You good to go? Yeah. Should be good to go, man. Yeah, man. Have fun. We'll see you when you get back. Thank you very much. So this first portage is going to be my furthest one of the trip today. My biggest worry is that this food bag could very well get stolen by a bear and that would be an absolutely terrible way to start off my week. Before we get too deep into the woods in this video, I wanted to let you all know that there is a pre-order going on out of all the new MAV Outdoors outerwear on the website right now. We've got our new Bonfire gridback fleece. Use it as a base layer. Tops and bottoms available in black and gray. These things are super warm and is actually the only base layer that I brought with me to Alaska. We've got a new camo colorway in our Overlander fleece. And then our 200 gram Primaloft insulated jacket. We've got a nice burnt orange colorway. Get stuff while you can on the website once we're out of a size. We're not restocking for an entire year. So get it while you can. Now let's get back to the prepaid programming. That's money, dope. Alright, got my food hung. Leaving the pack. Now I've got to go back for the canoe. We've got the canoe down here. This thing is super lightweight. It's made out of Kevlar. But the only downside to that is that I cannot hit any rocks with it because it is pretty fragile. So when I load up, I'm going to have to wade into the water. So I'm going to get rid of my socks and get ready for the other two portages ahead. Luckily for me, this is the shortest one. I've got a feeling that I'm going to be doing two trips on every portage. But that was the longest one on foot. This is the first of three lakes that I'm going to be on. This one's called Topper Lake. Now we're here at the second portage. Now it's time to walk a short distance to South Lake. The biggest lake that we're going to be going on. A smart guy would put his hiking shoes on, but I'm not feeling like the smartest guy right now. I'm a little crunched for time just because it is just me. And if I'm doing back and forth trips, I've got to make sure I'm making it to a campsite before dark. Uh oh. We've got a thunderhead moving in. Oh boy. This could get interesting. Alright. Now it's time to go get the canoe. Oh boy. We've got weather rolling in for sure. I'm trying to rush back to the canoe before this rain starts falling. Because stuff like this, if it gets hit with the rain, it's going to make it a million times harder for me to do this portage. The rain is coming down a lot harder. I made it just in the nick of time. Like I said, I'm running short on time, so this is going longer than like a half hour. I'm going to have to get my body moving. I've got my rain gear on. Just got to be patient with this sort of thing, I guess. It's been about 20 minutes. Looks like we're just going to have off and on showers for today. Well, that's one way to get wet. Really hope I don't regret this, but there's no trees to hang the bag on, so it's staying on the ground. The good news is, this is going to be the shortest portage that I have. I can pretty much see the other side from the lake that I'm sitting on. But the bad news is, the sun is starting to go down, and I don't have much time left. Try to make light work of this and get to a campsite as quick as possible so I can set up and hopefully get a little bit of sunlight to air out my now wet sleeping bag. Holy cow, there's a bunch of smallmouths right here. Smallmouth bass galore. You have no idea how hard it is for me to not throw a bait in the water there. I want to so bad. I'm going to be lucky to get to my campsite before it gets dark at this point. It's going to have to wait. Alright, I need to get a fire started yesterday. We've got ourselves a beautiful campsite. Since I'm all alone here tonight, I've got to make sure I can do what I can to not freeze my you-know-what's off. Alright, I did bring emergency fire starter for situations like this. I don't have to go find kindling. I need to find... oh, there's some kindling, I guess. Got any good wood in here? No. It's all terrible. Wet. We've got to take matters into our own hands. Okay, that's good. That's good. Alright, found myself some good firewood. And some bad stuff, but I think it should start to burn here. Bad news is I can't find any wrist-sized wood to burn. So, I'm just going to try to dry these ones out. You can see that these are freshly cut, so they still have sap on them. I didn't cut these down. They were sitting over here in that pile, but... Not the best fire, but it is burning. This campsite is next to a portage. I'm going to guess it gets a lot of traffic. So, it's been tough to find firewood. With it being dark outside, too, I don't really want to go exploring too far because I might not be able to find my way back to camp. So, that's going to have to do for tonight. It's keeping me warm. Lucky for me. The heat seems like it's hanging on. Now that I've got a fire going. My pants are all dried out. Well, for the most part. I'm going to set my hammock up for the night. Set these out to dry, too. New base layer we're working on. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to put this rainfly up, but I feel like I didn't do the best job. My sleeping pad is soaked. I don't think I'll be using that tonight. It's already 11 p.m. and I haven't eaten yet. So, I'm going to start cooking. But first, I need to snack. I actually have some smoked alligator gar from Louisiana. I'm going to have a couple bites of that. To tide me over for a second. But I think I am going to make some steaks tonight. Oh my gosh, I wish I had more of that gar. It's so good. Got a good fire going. Definitely got a good fire going. I think that was the first sip of beverage that I've had since I left. Actually, I don't think. I know it was. Alright, I got some salt, pepper, and onion powder all coming out at once. A little low on salt and pep. Good thing this is the only meal I'm planning on seasoning the absolute crank out of. Steaks over the fire. Perfect first meal. This is not the easiest thing to do solo. Let me just put it that way. Gotta filter your water somehow. That was close. My buddy Timmy gave me a fresh loaf of bread for my trip. Got a little smushed, but it was just made yesterday. I brought along some instant mashed potatoes. Homestyle butter. And I also brought some gravy. So I think that will pair well with the steak. Oh my god. That is so good. Time to eat now. Now that looks like a good meal, huh? Let's check out how I did on this bad boy. It's tough to cook over a fire. I'm gonna guess it's medium. Ooh. That's nice. That's like a medium, yeah. Perfect. Honestly, I was pretty worried it had too much time on the fire. But that looks, oh my gosh, that's like a medium rare. Dude, that looks delicious. Oh my gosh. That tastes like another bite. That is delicious too. Wow. I have no words for you right now, sorry. I'm just enjoying eating. I have no words. It's so good. I don't think I can eat this tonight, although I want to. The good news is I can hold onto it until tomorrow. Might be able to have some steak and eggs in the morning. Alright, I am in a bit too big of a food coma to wash dishes right now. So the last thing I need to do before I go to bed is tie this food up in the tree so Mr. Bear doesn't come and steal it all. I'm also gonna tie up my dirty dishes so I can just do those in the morning. Alright, got my bag hung for bears. Just put the fire out. I think it's time for night-night. It is nice being right next to the waterfalls because it sounds like a fan, honestly. Oh my gosh, that food put me out. It's just a little past midnight right now, about 45 degrees outside. And I'm warm. I'm warm and mostly dry. My underwear is still damp from jumping in earlier, but honestly, I'm pretty impressed my pants are dry already. I'm gonna go ahead and get my first night of shut-eye. I think we're gonna have to get after some fishing tomorrow because I'm itching. Oh, the sun is out. It's a beautiful thing, the sun. Oh yeah, that's nice. Before I can make breakfast, I actually realized the first thing I need to do is pump some water. So I'm gonna get my water pump out and we're gonna fill up my camelback so I got fresh water. All right, now I got a full Nalgene. There you go. Oh, this campsite is beautiful. I bet there's some great fishing right here and I can't wait to get after it. All of my water for this week, I'm gonna need to filter out with my little water filter. Well, the sunshine is never promised here, so I'm gonna take advantage of it. Even though there's clear bluebird skies, there is always a possibility of a storm front rolling in. And I want to be able to dry my stuff out. We're gonna set up a little clothesline to hang my clothes and my sleeping bag on. All right, gonna cut my steak up from last night. All right, there we go. Some hash browns, some steak for breakfast. I could fry them up in oil to make them crispy, but I don't have enough good firewood for me to want to do that right now. This looks delicious anyway. Bone app the teeth. I feel like ants is a weird thing for a chipmunk to be eating, but what do I know? Did you know that chipmunks ate ants? Am I living under a rock? Ant's a cannibal. Well, he's not an ant. I guess they like meat. I've seen them eat meat before. Ants is weird though. All right, just hung the food back up. Now we're gonna go do some dishes. All right, right now I think it would be a good time to gather some more firewood and replenish the stuff that I used last night. Let's go ahead and do that. Where do I think there would be a lot of firewood? Hmm. See if we can gather some stuff on the ground. Oh yeah, that's all right. Being away from home is about making it feel like home. So today I'm gonna make myself something that makes it feel like home. I think it's time to fish, man. This thing's been staring at me funny since I took it out of my backpack. I got a new two-piece fishing rod, a little Fenwick. I'm excited to use it. Nothing gets you more excited for fishing like some new equipment. The nice thing about this reel is that it came with two spools. So I brought some mono for if I want to do a slip bobber setup. But right now I'm gonna go with some braid. I'm gonna try to jig some walleyes from shore here. This is all I brought for tackle. Just a little bag. But inside of here we got all the goodies. We're ready to fish. What's shaking? Yes, sir. How was the paddle end? Yeah, the wind's terrible today. Oh, careful. Want some help? Failed to mention it, but my buddy Murray and Brandon are gonna be joining me on this trip. Well, I guess I'm joining you guys, kinda. I got invited and I can only get a permit for yesterday. That was the reason why I left early. But you boys had some wind today, huh? What's up, dude? Long time no see. Well, I know you're far away from home, so I wanted to make something for us that feels like home. Say hello to the naughty Cameron. The naughty Cameron. Anything? Yeah, boy. You can probably head stuff with it. We can make a new head for it. The wind's kinda died down a little bit, but we're in a nice little protected cove here. I can hear a waterfall, so there's gotta be some water coming in. First I gotta figure out where the water's coming in, which I think might be right here. Oh! On instant. Yeah. Oh! Oh! It's a smallmouth. Yeah. Promise. There's one. Got one. Oh, yeah. First fish of the trip. Oh, my gosh. He's got so many crayfish shoved inside of him. Look at that. He's eating good. Oh, he's got crayfish and minnows in there. I'm gonna let him go. He is a tub of lard. Cool. First fish of the trip. Probably about a two-pound smallmouth bass. We'll give him two and a half pounds. See ya, buddy. That was sick. I watched him eat. Oh! Broke me off. Dang it. They're going gangbusters over here. There's a bunch in here. You can catch them from the boat, too. I just decided to pull up. Yeah. Thing basically hit the water, and then he was on. A little smallmouth bass. All right, I got back in the canoe from shore. I found a giant snapping turtle shell on shore. Got wedged in between the rocks up here. Must have been trying to go up there to spawn or something and got stuck because it's relatively fresh. His meat's still on. Not his meat, but his collar and his skin is still on there. Murray's over here smashing smallies. Might try to catch a walleye or something. Hey, show me the fish. Nice. Oh! Watch the meat. Ka-chow! Nice smallmouth bass. Got myself a trolling bait. A little Berkley Flickershad. I'm going to troll this thing around. See if I can find a walleye with it. I think I'd eat that if I was a walleye, wouldn't you? That's all she wrote, I think, for today. All right, we're going with the old MRE for dinner tonight. Southwest-style beef and black beans. I have an apple pound cake. I got tortillas. I have a cappuccino. It's all hot. Apple pieces and spice sauce. Oh, yeah, boy. These are scary. What is it? A beef stick. No way. These are scary. Oh! Teriyaki beef stick. Dude, they're good for so long. This is from, like, last year, though. That was a subpar beef stick. Well, hopefully it tastes better than it looks. Cheese whiz. Yeah, boy. That's how you know it's good cheese, is when you can do that. That looks crazy. It's pretty good, actually. All right, Southwest Beef gets the check out from me. It's good. Looks wild. Looks like somebody made a stinky in my tortilla, but... Looks like Taco Bell. All right, got a little mint tea to end the night. Ooh, that smells nice. Shirts. Tickle masala. Beedle, beedle, tickle masala. That wasn't a good idea. That one's stubborn. Why don't you try chopping it? You try hitting it? All right, Brandon was just splitting up some wood for us. A lot of the wood's, like, pretty fresh, so getting it split helps air it out a lot. So all these little holes inside of this wood are actually worm holes. I saw one earlier, and I thought I just saw one now. Maybe you guys saw it in the footage, but they're like larvae. So we're kind of just stacking it up on the outside of the fire right now and dry it out, and then eventually we'll put it on. Trying to find the hole with that worm on it. It's just like a little, almost looks like a termite, but they're not. I think they're, like, fly larvae or something. I don't know. Maybe you guys can tell me in the comments. But it's definitely starting to cool off a lot. Got some cloud cover. It's supposed to rain in the middle of the night, maybe at, like, 4 a.m. to 11, they said. But I'm hoping that this rainfly is going to be enough to keep me dry because I'm a little worried about how this side, like, kind of curves. And I'm also worried about my gear getting wet below. But supposedly this should be long enough where it won't get too wet, but I got all my important stuff in my dry bag anyway, so if it gets rained on, we'll be a-okay. All right, just leaving the campfire for the night. The rain's held off for now. But we're supposed to get some from 4 a.m. until 11, so I'm going to nestle on into here for the rest of the night. I haven't really decided what I want to make for breakfast. Let's do a little—let's do a little inventory check. So I could make French toast, I could make blueberry oats, or I have biscuits and gravy. That's a big worm. I should grab him and use him as bait. All right, I mixed up some cinnamon, cardamom, and some nutmeg together before I left. All right, I'm going with French toast. Morning, Murray. Morning, Brandon. There's our French toast. I might have taken a nibble out of that piece of bread before I cooked it, but it's neither here nor there. The one thing that would make it more delicious is having some maple syrup, but cheers. Hmm, not too shabby. All right, just finished up with breakfast. Just getting the canoe loaded here. It's looking like a perfect day to catch some fish. We couldn't find any walleye yesterday, so today we're actually blessed with really calm water. So we're going to do some exploring and try to find ourselves some walleye, possibly some more smallmouth. Slow and steady wins the race here. Fish on! Ooh. So you can see these little black dots on here. That means that this fish has fleas. I'm trying to find some that are more clear so I can do a catch and cook. Cook some up for dinner. Got my first fish on, on the trolling rod. I think it might be a bass. It's fighting like a bass, kind of. There is lake trout in this lake, too, but this one looks like it could be a smallmouth bass. Yep, smallie. Nice smallie. All right, I've got to be careful here because there's treble hooks. Got him. All right, little smallmouth bass, little two-pounder. You can see he's got some fleas on him, too. You can see those little black dots inside his tail and on his fins. Not good for eating right now, but sure fun to catch. See you, buddy. Yep, got him. Shortage of smallmouth. There's another two-and-a-half-pounder. Cool. See you, bud. All right, one more cast. This is looking like it's an outflow from the lake, so maybe not quite what we're looking for. Doesn't matter. Got a fish anyway. Fish out. Little smallie. There you go. It's crazy. The ones that are in the current are like this crazy blue color, bluish-green. They fight so much harder. They're conditioned. They're on an aqua treadmill all day. That was fun. Yeah, we've had like ten doubles, like every cast. All right, here, I'll get a triple with you. Just for funsies. Yeah, this is dummy zone. We're tripled right now. They're loaded in here, huh? Well, if you're never not catching fish, just go find Murray. He's always on them. Little pea shooter. All right, I really want to catch one on a fly rod, so I've got my fly rod set up. Some sink tip. A little five-weight. Trying not to get myself too, too soaked here, but... Oh! There, we got one. Fish on! That was cool. I watched him eat right here. Okay. All right, back in the canoe. Fish are hungry, but so am I. My legs were getting cold standing in the water, so... I'm going to catch a couple for sure, at least. All right, still out here. I'm just going to start to head back to camp. I actually caught myself a pretty decent perch. And a littler one, too. I'm going to troll my crankbait for some lake trout on the way back. But we got about a two-mile paddle before I'm back. It's starting to get a little darker out, so... I want to leave some room to find some firewood and... get dinner prepared in the light versus the dark. Beautiful day, though. I mean, couldn't ask for better weather out here. So this is awesome. All right, we made it back. And I just pulled all of the fish out. We ended up with... two SMBs and two perch. This guy's a little small, but... he's bigger than some of the other ones I was catching, so... we're keeping it. But look at that landscape. Holy cow. It's gorgeous. All right, we got fresh fish there. Wow. Can't beat it. See if it's ready. No. Kind of. Maybe. Might need that Jetboil. The Jetboil? Mm-hmm. That's not hot enough, is it? It's close, but no. See how it's foaming? Yeah. It's really close, though. Thank you, sir. That's not stable. All right, I switched over to the stove because the... cooking fish over the fire is just not an easy thing to do. I got a couple pieces, but... I'm not quite sure how those are gonna taste. Probably like oil. Oh, yeah, boy. Thanks, boy. I hit the handle with my knee. That was almost really bad. Glad you weren't near me. Whoops. That smells good, Mavvy boy. That was crazy. None of the oil actually penetrated through my shoe. Just felt hot. Oh, that's bomb. Perch and smallmouth catch and cook. I haven't had smallmouth bass in forever, but they're tasty. At least when they're in the cold water like this. Early season smallmouth, yeah. Almost like walleye. Sorry I almost burned your feet, Brandon. Bet you didn't. Those would have been some crispy tootsies. That could have been so much worse. That could have been way worse. All right, checks out. I'm gonna make myself a cup of tea. I got tea brewing right now, boy. Do you really? I do. Sick. Pretty solid day three, though. Ended up the day with like 40 fish probably by myself. These guys each caught 100. No, I probably caught 100 total. 100 total? 100 total. Oh, really? Still a great day for smallmouth. I already had one of these ice cream sandwiches hanging out at my house for the longest time. Finally remembered to bring it somewhere. Apparently, you don't even heat this thing up. Mint chip. It's like a cookie. It's crazy. Brandon, you want to try it? Whoa. Yeah, he does. That's how you're supposed to eat it? Yeah. It doesn't say to do anything. You want another bite? No. Ka-chow. It's pretty fire. Mm-hmm. I would give that a solid. Ten. You give it ten? Yeah. That's good. It's good because we're camping, but that's pretty good. Well, good morning. Just something easy for breakfast this morning. Little biscuits and gravy. Dehydrated meal. Fire ripping. Lots of green pine around from wind blowdowns. Not a whole lot of dry wood around here, but it's burning. This afternoon, it's supposed to rain a little bit. I might go explore some of the waterfalls and some of the trails that they have around here. Maybe do some fishing. We'll see. But once it starts raining, I'm going to be hanging out inside there. Sausage and gravy. Mm. There's the waterfall we can thank for all the white noise. It's crazy. All right, we climbed up the cliff. You can actually see our campsite from up here. Hopefully nobody saw me partying in my birthday suit the first day. Did you actually? Yeah. I was just hanging out down there. I didn't realize you could see that good. Cool view, though. All right, I made it up to Duncan Lake. This is where we're going to portage tomorrow when we get out. A little bit of a vertical trek up here. I was going to bring a fishing rod up, but I'm glad I didn't because it is very shallow inside of here, and I don't see any fish. There you go. All right, got a couple smallmouth at that spot. I think I'm going to go troll around, see if I can find a lake trout or a walleye because that sounds pretty awesome for dinner. I do have some of those freeze-dried meals, but out here, fresh fish is killer. It's starting to spit rain a little bit. I think I brought a rain suit. Loons are out here fishing, too. What's up, boys? All right, a little calm in this bay. I'm going to try casting for some walleyes, seeing if I can find something. The lake trout should be shallow right now, too, spawning. Could have a good chance. Don't know unless you try, right? Smallie. I'm soaking wet right now, and it's not exactly the warmest outside, so I'm going to try to warm up and dry off inside my bag. It is actually chilly, so I'm happy I got in here when I did. Well, if I'm being honest, I fell asleep before I could have my lunch, and I am freaking wet. It's not good, but we're out right now making some dinner. The wind's kind of picked up, but the rain's just a sprinkler right now. I'm trying to get a fire started and have some dinner before we all go nest in our sleeping situations for the rest of the night. How are you doing? Cold. Cold and wet. How are you doing? Slamming down a little chicken fajita. Fire's being stubborn. It's not dry wood right now. It is probably mid-40s, would you say? 43, 45 degrees maybe? 40. 40? All I know is it's cold. It's supposed to rain on us all night tonight. It's going to make it a little rough for our packout tomorrow, but pretty soon here I'm going to go nestle back into the sleeping bag for the night. Trying to use a jet boil. All right, we got the fire ripping. Trying to dry our stuff up before the rain gets too bad. The good news is most of my sleeping stuff is dry. It's a little damp in here. The green bag that I put my sleeping bag in, the bivvy, doesn't allow the sleeping bag to breathe, so it creates some condensation on the inside of the green bag, and so it's just a little bit damp. But it is still warm. Feeling pretty good in here. Got some stuff to pack up tomorrow, but it's just throwing stuff in a bag. Dry bags are wet, rope's wet. Everything's wet right now. All right, got camp all packed up. Just headed to the fire pit. Now we got to get down there and get in our canoe and embark on our portage. Right now we don't have a whole lot of wind going on, so the forecast later calls for up to 30-mile-an-hour winds, so I got to make quick work of this. All right, not too bad. We made it to the next portage lake. All right, just made it down to the final portage. Now we're here at Bearskin. Got about a 30-rod paddle until we're back at the truck. The good news is I think for the most part we beat the weather. The bad news is the wind's starting to pick up. Both my GoPros are fried from water. This is the last standing soldier. Land ho. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. We made it! Holy man, am I glad we're not going into that. All loaded back up. Got a fresh set of clothes on. Got a three-hour drive until I get back home. Man, Boundary Waters is always definitely pushing my limits. Had a great couple days of weather, some awesome fishing, and some good times with friends. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, there's going to be more videos linked at the end of this video you can click on. But as always, until next time, you already know the drill. Just keep on truckin'.