A buggy spring trip to the BWCA; Crooked Lake

It's the 6th spring trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area (probably another 14 + fall trips too)  and we decide to head into Crooked Lake this spring as a change from our usual South Arm of Knife Lake spring trip.  There are five of us, with George testing out his homemade wooden solo canoe.  It's a "lively" (a bit tippy) boat, but he handles it very well and as usual outfished the rest of us (particularly me) - We have three fantastic fish dinners courtesy of mainly George, but most of the other guys contributed fish as well.  this trip starts at Mudro Lake and 7 portages later, we reach Crooked Lake via Sandpit Lake, Tin Cup Mike Lake, Horse Lake, the Horse River and a small piece of Basswood Lake.  This spring trip is by far our buggiest with our bug shirts getting a real workout as the black flies were out and about.  Fishing was so so, but some decent fish were caught.  As always when Jeff Norby is along we had plenty of homemade biscotti (made by Jeff's wife Michelle) with our coffee each morning.  It was also our busiest spring trip too, with most campsites in the area occupied by our third day.  We had great weather though with rain only on our first late afternoon and evening...cold nights in the beginning (frost first two mornings; but 80 degrees by the time we canoed out.