BWCA Report – August 2021

Hey all. First off, thanks to those who responded to an earlier post I made asking for some tackly advice. I brought my 9-year old to the BWCA for the first time last week along with 2 friend and their kids. We worked hard, had a blast, and caught a lot of fish.

The highlight for us was my son sticking a pig smallie. He was getting a little down because he was having a slow day and lost a few fish at the boat, but he did a great job with this fish, and it literally is the first thing he told his mom when we got home.

We went pretty remote and had the entire lake to ourselves. The key to catching fish was, well, to fish. We honestly had luck at all hours of the day and with just about everything we threw–trolling cranks, lindy rigs, jigging leeches, leeches on slip bobbers, and we had some fun with topwater, too. We caught walleye, pike, smallmouth, and even a couple of crappies. We ate some big meals of walleye and threw a lot of fish back, too.

Already looking forward to next year!

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Oh, and we also caught the most massive toad I’ve ever seen and did some cliff jumping.

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Good to hear you had a great trip. Glad your son was able to get into fish. I was up there mid July and fishing was tough. We ended up on a fair number of lake trout lakes and were poorly equipped. Tried some deep water jigging but results were not there. Gave me ideas for spring though…

Awesome! What area of the BWCA were you in (feel free to be as vague or specific as you’d like!)?

Greenhorn wrote:

What area of the BWCA were you in (feel free to be as vague or specific as you’d like!)?

Roughly 10-20 miles east of Ely.

Looks like you had a good trip. Is the fire ban in effect up there?

gim wrote:

Is the fire ban in effect up there?

Yes, that part kinda sucked.

Nice, looks like an awesome trip! Did the kids handle it well? Is that a good age to take them?

BigWerm wrote:

Did the kids handle it well? Is that a good age to take them?

They did well. We had two 9 year olds, two 7 year olds, and a 5 year old. Everyone except for my son had been up before. It meant double portaging for us adults, but the kids did their best. The 9 year olds carried a surprising amount. The younger kids we had haul paddles and other smaller things.

Nice work. Sounds like a blast. Dang five year old that’s impressive.

Glad you had a good trip RW.I’m impressed the kids did well.
I hope Ripley gets to go next time.Congrats to the little fella on the smallie.

chuck100 wrote:

I hope Ripley gets to go next time.

Doubtful! As much as I love him, the idea of sharing a small tent with a BWCA-dirty dog does not appeal to me, and I’m too much of a softy to make him sleep outside alone. He does come along when we car-camp, though. He’s a bit of a bed hog and has been known to end up between my wife and I.

Love it! Awesome pics and looks like a fantastic trip. Great memories made with the boys.

Did you make your son drink the smallmouth slime out of the green coffee cup? 🤔 Nice toad!!

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>chuck100 wrote:</div>
I hope Ripley gets to go next time.

Doubtful! As much as I love him, the idea of sharing a small tent with a BWCA-dirty dog does not appeal to me, and I’m too much of a softy to make him sleep outside alone. He does come along when we car-camp, though. He’s a bit of a bed hog and has been known to end up between my wife and I.

Sounds like a great trip. Glad it went well. Give your son a HIGH 5 on that smallie!!
Our Vizsla sleeps between the wife and I every night!

Bob Bowman wrote:

Did you make your son drink the smallmouth slime out of the green coffee cup? 🤔

Ha! I didn’t even notice that in the pic. The coffee cup was actually there to hold his candy stash. The amount of candy consumed on this trip was epic.

Awesome!! Looked like a great trip, and the boys had fun!

How many miles you think you paddled?

Nick Altavilla wrote:

How many miles you think you paddled?

Looking at the map, it looks like we did about 10 miles of paddling/portaging on the first day. We camped there for 3 nights and went about halfway back to camp for the final night. From there, we day-tripped to another lake, and then headed back out on the last morning.

My sons first trip was when he was 10. Rained the whole trip and even the fishing wasn’t that great. I thought he would never go back — WRONG!!. He made many trips after that. Last one was when he was a JR in college. He is now 42 and we are already on the calendar for next summer. Not sure how many I have left in me though ???

Awesome Ralph! Love to see the kids enjoying the BWCA!!

Just saw this. Cool and congrats on a great trip!

Sounds like a great trip!! Heading up and it sounds like going to be in same area leaving tomorrow morning.

What size leeches where you using? I called up to several bait stores in Ely and no one has any but panfish size.

We had some monsters, but I don’t know where my buddy bought them.