Another 4 am start; which saw us leaving with Gary at 5.15 and driving to the dock to board his boat and head across Quenell Lake to the Mitchell River. It was still dark when we left the dock and lovely watching the day dawn with the sun breaking through the mists.
We headed into the north arm of the lake and stopped at another small dock and transferred to a small open boat for our trip into the river. The transfer took a little longer than normal as we had to struggle into waders first - this was the clothing of choice incase there were no bears in the bottom half of the river and we had to clamber over the log jam and walk to find the bears.
As we journeyed into the river our first sighting was of a beaver swimming along, it then got out walked along the bank before getting back in and finally smacking its tail, diving and swimming out of sight - a good omen perhaps.
As we motored up the river, I said 'bears' as we saw a mother and 3 cubs on the edge to water - they were however frightened off by another female ( today's photo) who we watched fishing in the river and searching for dead salmon trapped in the logs along the river bank for the next 40-50 minutes. Having had a bear fest in the lower river there was no need leave the boat and to test our wader skills. Gary however was in the water holding the boat in the fast moving current so we could watch the bear.
After the bear disappeared we had a leg stretch on a shingle bank drifted down the river watching the bald and golden eagles sitting in the trees and occasionally salmon fishing. We also spotted a beautiful blue stellar jay.
Having had a successful day we headed back to the lodge after lunch arriving back mid afternoon.
A great day, great weather but it looks to take a turn for the worse tomorrow!