Paddling around Lake Pend Oreille

When I was a kid I used to have this fantastic dream of being a mad scientist and having my secret laboratory in a castle on a remote island away from public scrutiny.  Whenever we would drive up to the "property," which is now my parents home, I would look at the islands in Pend Oreille Lake and think "yeah... that would be a nice spot for my castle and secret lab."  

Well as I got older I realized how insanely expensive it is to purchase all the equipment for a research facility, let alone purchasing a private island and building a castle on it.  However, those islands still fascinate me and I've wanted to explore them.  

When I bought my kayak a couple of years ago I didn't even consider the idea of paddling around a lake the size of Pend Oreille.  I just thought the waves would be too big and I would capsize, which would not be a good thing.  However, in the warm summer months I figured out what it would take to tip the kayak over from a seated and standing position.  I found out that you actually have to try really, really hard to get the kayak to tip.  I also had the kayak out in some nasty weather on a smaller lake and got a feel for how it handles in rough waves.  

I also looked at weather data for Pend Oreille and it seems like high winds come when there is a high pressure or low pressure transition coming in.  If the weather pattern holds chances are the wind/waves will not be that bad.  With this knowledge and experience, I decided to explore the lake!

The day I went out the weather was calm.  This is a picture from Hwy 200 looking south.  The island that you see right-center is Warren Island.

Here is a picture from the launch site.  I was lucky in that there were not a lot of people taking boats out.  I pretty much had the area to myself.

 

Here is a picture of Cottage island.  I keep my cell phone (aka camera) in a ziplock bag in my lifejacket and it is that ziplock bag you see in the lower left corner of the picture.  Yeah, trying to hold too many things in your hand and take a picture is bad technique.  I also think this picture is weird because of the random photobombing bird and the glassy water.  By this point I was a long way from the launch point and to see the water this calm (aside from the waves created by a boat passing by) gave me the chills.  I thought "hmm.... this water is toooo calm.... this makes me think that I could be in for some scary waves later on."  Nope, the water was pretty much like this all day.

Cottage Island is private land, so I didn't get a chance to walk around and explore it.  I wish I did know the owners of it though.  It looked like it had a couple of old cabins on it.  I love looking at old structures and thinking about how they were built, who lived in them, etc.

The next island was Pearl Island.  This one is the farthest island that you can see from Hwy 200.  It was donated to the public and as a result you can beach your boat and do some exploring.

 

Here is a picture that I took from the northern edge of Pearl Island looking north toward Cottage Island and Hwy 200.

Apparently, the island is a favorite nesting site for eagles.  I couldn't find any but it does seem like a preferred habitat for Canadian geese.  I saw egg shells all over the island and their dung as well.

Here is a picture looking across the east side of Pearl Island looking south.

It was a fun day, but I didn't catch any fish.  I must have trolled about 6 different kokanee setups and I even tried some lures ranging from spoons to spinners to Rapala's, I got zilch.  I got maybe a couple of bites (hard to tell with bluebacks).  I did some serious paddling too.  I was out for about 10 hours paddling around.  I can't believe I fished that long with out a single fish or a serious bite.  Oh well, it was fun exploring.