BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
May 09 2024
Entry Point 23 - Mudro Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 5
Elevation: 1166 feet
Latitude: 48.0356
Longitude: -91.8301
On the Water- Monday July 20th-
On the water late considering how far we need to go today. Up the Horse river to the falls by 6pm. Started raining and NO campsites available. Mudrow-Alruss-Tin can Mike-Horse Lake-Horse River-Basswood. 13 miles by water. (not counting portages)
Tuesday July 21st-
Rain all night, all morning and all day. Went north by petroglyphs, table rock and the the Crocked Lake Narrows across Thursday bay to campsite. Basswood-Crooked Lake-Wednesday Bay-Thursday Bay. 11 miles in the rain.
Wednesday July 22nd-
Up early and calm winds to take advantage of, considering the big water we have to cross. Found beaver dam to lift over and did a portage from hell between Pandos lake and Chippewa Lake. VERY steep and slippery after rain. Many mud holes. Then the mile portage after Wagosh Lake to Gun Lake. Never saw another soul in a canoe or campsite the entire day! Thursday bay-Friday Bay-Pandos Lake-Chippewa Lake-Wagosh lake-Gun Lake. 11 miles by water.
Thursday July 23rd-
Finally had a dry night. got everything dry!!! A few portages today to Fourtown Lake campsite. Easy day by comparison. Gun Lake-Fairy Lake-Boot Lake-Fourtown Lake. 6 miles. Put the long miles at the first of the week for a buffer for contingencies!
Friday July 24th-
Last day. Stormed last night bad. A few portages today with one bad one between Fourtown Lake and Mudrow lake. To entry point by 1pm. Ready for a hot shower! 4 miles
Total-
45 miles by water
13 miles by portage (3 trips each)
58 miles total.
North Arm of Knife 2008
Entry Date:
June 05, 2008
Entry Point:
Moose Lake
Number of Days:
7
Group Size:
7
The groups of guys I go with are all from Iowa and we usually use Latourell's as our outfitter and tow service. in their yurt the night before our tow to Indian portage on Birch Lake. The mission of our trip was to go to the North Arm of Knife Lake, base camp and catch big fish. In 2008 it was a pretty late spring and the water was still pretty cold around 48 degrees in the main part of the lake. We were hoping this would make for decent laker fishing. The first day started out pretty rough raining with an east wind but by the time we got to Robbins island for lunch by that cool rock it was starting to clear off a bit. 
We have a pretty tough bunch of guys and although we don’t travel light we like to hump it to camp so we can start our fishing. So we left Latourell’s at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at our campsite well up the north by 1:30 p.m. About 200 yards from camp we hooked into a decent laker, we hoped this was a good omen. 
We got to camp set up pretty quickly and had our traditional chili meal for our first night along with some baked trout. On our trips we always have prizes for big fish or small fish or whatever we think warrants a prize. These prizes are usually some sort of apparel, this year it was a jumpsuit and some Hawaiian shirts.
We started to explore all the bays and found that the bays water temps had warmed to the 60’s and the smallies were close to there beds. We spent several afternoons throwing top waters and bobbers and leeches for smallies catching many that were 20 inches or better. 
It seemed that the transition zone from the cold main lake water to the bays warm water was where the walleyes were. The walleyes were mainly in 12 to 14 feet of water and liked orange or brown jigs tipped with leeches. The northerns were all over with one particular bay holding many large Pike. This was one of the larger Pike and it was caught on 6 lb test with no leader. 
The campsite we camped at was particularly beautiful. It didn’t have very good fishing but the landing was nice, there was plenty of room for tents and hammocks. It had a nice fire area with logs to sit on, and a great rock where we stored all of our booze, we called it the bar rock.
The bar rock came in quite useful since my 50th birthday occurred on this trip. The day after my birthday, since we weren’t feeling up to a long paddle we went to the narrows where the North Arm of Knife Lake goes into Little Knife Lake. This area turned into a very good walleye spot and the prize for walleyes was a nice orange and white flowered shirt. 
This trip turned out to be another great fishing trip. The Lakers were in about 20 to 30 feet of water hitting deep diving tail dancers. The smallies were in the bays getting ready for spawning. Walleyes as mentioned before generally in 12 to 14 feet of water on jigs and in the evenings on floating jig head tipped with leeches on the bottom. Pike all over.
Finally after 7 days it was time to head out. On the trip out we had the worst wind we had all trip probably 25+ mph but luckily it was behind us but we pontooned the canoes just to be safe 
With the wind at our back we made it across knife in about 2 hours, we made it through all 6 portages in about 2 more hours. We decided to walk our canoes through 4 of the 6 portages, the water was a little chilly but all went well. All in all another wonderful trip. We ate too much, we drank too much, we fished too much, but you can never have too much fun. 