If not now, then when! For the past twenty years, with a couple of exceptions I have done a Quetico canoe trip. These trips have taken me to the lower end of the park and the upper end, but I have never paddled the length of the park. This winter I was looking at maps and decided that this would be the summer I would finally paddle the park from north to south though the falls chain, Kawnipi and out at Sagnaga. http://www.paddleplanner.com/tools/maps/bwcaqueticomap.aspx
My two boys took a week off work; one flew in from San Francisco, the other from Montana. My old college buddy rounded out the geriatric side of the trip and my nephew agreed to drop us off in Canada then leave our vehicle at the top of the Gunflint trail on the American side.
We started off on Pickerel Lake and the first day hit it pretty hard making it to Russell lake narrow. The narrows between Sturgeon Lake and Russell is a tremendous area to fish and provided a nice campsite and our first meal of walleyes. I can’t say enough about this area for both quality campsites as well as good smallmouth and walleye angling.
The second day we paddled up the Falls chain to Kawnipi lake. We didn’t fish much as this was a traveling day and because we got a little fussy about finding a nice campsite we ended up traveling further up the lake then we intended.
The third and fourth day we took our time moving down the main part of Kawnipi and the upper falls chain. Walleyes and smallmouth were willing biters and could be found on most any point with wind and weeds. We ended up on one spot that my boys got over 20 walleyes, but by the time I caught up with them the bite had died down which left them laughing as the old guys had the “slows”.
Our last day on the water was amazing. We fished soft current areas on the Sagnagons. The smallmouth were just going nuts in neck down areas feeding up for winter. We found several concentrations of bass ranging from healthy two-pound fish with our biggest coming in at 24 inches! We easily caught over 40 bass with some very nice walleyes mixed in. Most of our fish came on 4 inch power worms and tubes. The larger bass just crushed Pop’ Rs. The next day we got picked up on Sagnaga by Sea Gull Outfitters, had a great sauna and beverages in Grand Marai. Spending time with family and friends in such a grand place doing something I know will become less a possibility with age and changing life situations made this one special.
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