Our group is headed up to Basswood Lake near Back Bay Hoist Bay and Wind Bay on June 11-15. Anyone know some good spots or general advice for people who have done some fishing? We are planning on base camping on Skidway Island or maybe a different spot in that area. It is a group of 6 (3 couples). Planning on a few daytrips fishing so we could easily go into some of the smaller surrounding lakes. Any advise would be very welcome.

Kcid

Be sure to let us know how you did. I'll be there in August. If you do a search you should be able to find responses to my post about the same areas.

I have gone to that area for 5 years in a row. Can be terrific fishing that time of year. Skidway site can be nice, but it's up a hil a little way so it can be hard first setting camp. The site to the W side of the entrance to Wind bay is nice and very open.

One thing that I would recommend checking out is the sunken steam engine in hoist bay neas the SE side. It is marked on the maps section of the site as well.

I will be there the week after you with a group of 4. Good luck.

E-mail me

I will be there June 22 - 25 so please post your results. Will have a group of four. Good Luck and Great Fishing

quote cjweath: "I have gone to that area for 5 years in a row. Can be terrific fishing that time of year. Skidway site can be nice, but it's up a hil a little way so it can be hard first setting camp. The site to the W side of the entrance to Wind bay is nice and very open.


One thing that I would recommend checking out is the sunken steam engine in hoist bay neas the SE side. It is marked on the maps section of the site as well.


I will be there the week after you with a group of 4. Good luck."

Sunken Steam Engine? How do you find that again? I've been heading to this area for years and one person in my party will hit I believe his 53rd or 54th year. He's never heard of that? I can't believe I haven't heard of that either?? That sounds really cool, how deep is it?

I found it a few years ago when I was trying to retrieve a snagged lure. You can use the search function of this site and search "train". Someone has marked it on the maps section of this site as well.

I didn't think it was a train but it is definitely a large old steam powered engine of some type. It is kinda strange to see it sunk in hoist bay. One of the stranger things I have snagged a lure on for sure.

you mean it's not indigenous?

It's a "Bull of the Woods," like this one on Birch Lake. Sunken remnants of similar craft may be seen on both Burntside's Hoist Bay and Basswood's Hoist Bay. Both still show part of the stack above water.

That looks about right. I don't think the stack sits above the water though, at least not when I was there.

quote cjweath: "That looks about right. I don't think the stack sits above the water though, at least not when I was there."

That's too bad. I hope to visit a bunch of the artifacts I've heard about over the years on this site, but imagine that many will get stripped or tinkered with and eventually disappear.