Tom, it was an awesome trip. my favorite of my 2 blind purchase used canoes quickly became the old Aero Craft 17 footer or as the girls called it "the indian canoe" it's old & well used but wow, not too bad to carry on portage pads for a 17' alum, fast, easy paddling, stable, deep, wide, real nice canoe. Anybody wanna buy an alumacraft standard weight? that thing was nicknamed the "stone boat" or "the crusher" for the abuse it served up on portages, oh what a nightmare.
But as you can see the fishing was excellent, we ate fish every night, walleye & northern cooked over the fire. But we didn't eat the big one. We actually took the 41.5 incher all the way out & it's at the taxidermist right now. The boys made that first portage with the big fat 41.5 incher and a respectable 6-7 pounder on that cedar pole I rigged up for them. about 3/4 mile of roots & rocks, up hill, down hill, up hill, down hill... repeat until almost dead... they got it back in the water as soon as they reached the water on the other end of the portage & we kept him in cool water for the rest of the night by rigging a water safe back at camp by flooding a canoe & pulling it up on shore full of water. We stored the big northern in that water filled canoe overnight to keep it away from the snappers. Then the boys towed it behind there canoe on the way out after we broke camp on day 3 up to our last portage. Last portage had a cool stream near the truck parking spot so the boys carried the big fish quickly to the stream & dropped it in there to keep it wet & cool while we portaged & packed all the rest of the gear out, once we were ready to leave in the trucks we grabbed the fish from the stream & put a white kitchen style garbage bag over each end (head & tail) to keep him clean & moist & we made a B-line for Ely to get him on ice.
Once we had the fish iced down we went for dinner at that resturant/bar I talked about called Cranberry's, well it changed names, I think they called it the "boat house" now, but it hadn't changed much other than bathroom renovations & the adition of a micro brewery which wasn't quite finished yet.
Food was still great, waitress had to step back quickly after she set the food down so she didn't get bit.
that thing was nicknamed the "stone boat" or "the crusher" for the abuse it served up on portages, oh what a nightmare. 
