We were camped on the northeast shoreline campsite on Agnes Friday night and had a bear come after my food pack. It was our last night of an 8 day trip so the food pack was sealed tight, everything double zip locked (but there was very little food left anyway). We keep a clean camp, no trash, food scraps or anything like it. I usually stash my food pack in the woods at least 200 feet from the kitchen area and have never had an issue. This final night, I sealed all of the opsack zippers and the food pack, but then I got lazy and only stashed it about 100 feet or so away from camp. At 2:30, I heard the bear knock the big rock I always put on top of the pack down and start going to work. I immediately grabbed my flashlight and got out of the tent. I spotted the bear and he/she looked right at me and immediately let go of the pack. I started clapping and yelling at it to get out and it loped off to the northeast out of camp. My pack was abused, but the bear got no food. This bear seemed to be a habitual bear, it clearly had done this many times before. My point here is that even the tidiest campers are going to have issues with this bear. I know there have been issues in Agnes for years, I finally got the unfortunate bad luck of experiencing it first hand. I moved my food pack and started a fire and sat up until about 4:30 before turning in again. The bear never returned. On our 8 day trip, campsites were hard to come by and this site was one of only two available of the 17 sites on Agnes that day. I’m starting to think it was vacant for a reason...lol. When we got back to the EP yesterday, there was a note about a bear on the SE side of Agnes posted. Exciting and a little nerve racking end to a fun trip. Trip report coming soon!

Tony

Unfortunately the FS and MN DNR well not do any thing quickly about this bear .

There only one way to stop this bear from preying on other campers and becoming a bigger problem.

That is kill it the sooner the better.

Unfortunately the FS and DNR tend to wait till just before bears season in Sept. then they go in and kill it denying hunters the chance. thus leaving it to wreak havoc all summer.

Yep
There are Bears in the woods...doing Bear things.

Yeah, don’t get me wrong, the bear did nothing wrong here. I’m not saying anything should be done about this bear. I’m not even going to inform the Ranger Station about it. Hunters can have their shot at it in the fall. This post was simply to make people aware who may be traveling to the area soon. I’m aware that we’re the ones traveling into their home, so I’ve always expected to have a bear run in at some point. Just wanted to throw it out there as an FYI for others.

Tony

I believe there is more than one Lake Agnes. Can you be more specific? Which EP?

BWCA Agnes, north of EP 16

Anthony - We've camped on Agnes. Out of curiosity, what was the number of the campsite?

The problem with a habituated bear is they tend to get worse and worse. When nothing negative happens the just get bolder and bolder. Eventually some get to be more than just a nuisance. RR is correct in suggesting it's removal (as in permanently).

Anges has always had a vibrant bear population. I've seen more bears (or evidence of) on Agnes over the years than everywhere else I've gone put together.

I'll give you a report after next week!

mikedmarsh1: "Anthony - We've camped on Agnes. Out of curiosity, what was the number of the campsite?"

This is site 1805, the site on the east side, by the cove where the 115 rod portage takes you to the Boulder River.

I stayed at that site 7 or 8 years ago some good fishing in the area.

Thanks, Anthony. We stayed at 1800 last August one night. There were bear sightings posted at the entry point, but we didn't see any. Great lake.

Unfortunately it's more so people in the woods doing people things, giving bears access to unsecured food.

: "Unfortunately it's more so people in the woods doing people things, giving bears access to unsecured food."

There is a easy solutions to this problem if you are worried about the bears.

Stay out of the woods.

We like that site though!

a tree fell during a storm by shore when we stayed at that site and scared us haha

So just a quick note, if you don’t report it to the ranger station it doesn’t get shared with all the outfitters to warn non bwca.com people. I asked for updates this morning as I left the outfitter this morning and they didn’t know about the Agnes bear.

gsfisher13: "So just a quick note, if you don’t report it to the ranger station it doesn’t get shared with all the outfitters to warn non bwca.com people. I asked for updates this morning as I left the outfitter this morning and they didn’t know about the Agnes bear."

The forest service knows. When I got back to the EP, there was a sign posted warning of bear activity on the east shore of Agnes. That’s why I didn’t report it. Most outfitters know of the bear on Shell and Agnes, I talked with VNO, Piragis and Duane’s and they all knew.

On a side note, are you putting up a trip report up on your YT channel? :D

Atrain: "On a side note, are you putting up a trip report up on your YT channel? :D"

Atrain- yes, there will be a trip report and a video to accompany it. I’m editing footage and piecing it together right now, but it will probably be a few weeks before it’s done. Thanks for the interest...sadly, I didn’t think to grab the camera out of the tent when I went out to chase the bear off. I probably wouldn’t have gotten good video quality anyway since it was really dark and all I could see was a silhouette of the bear and his eye reflections from my headlamp.

anthonyp007: "

mikedmarsh1: "Anthony - We've camped on Agnes. Out of curiosity, what was the number of the campsite?"

This is site 1805, the site on the east side, by the cove where the 115 rod portage takes you to the Boulder River. "

Probably the same bear that was doing the same thing at the same campsite last year. We ran into a guy as we were going in 1st part of Sept and that's where he was camped... said the bear got all his food and wrecked his tent.

If you go to the wilderness you have to expect to find it! Not faulting the OP at all, but the hard fact is that he had food out on the ground in a container that was not bear proof and was depending on what is really minimal technology to protect his food. It is obvious that opsacks are nothing more than 'feel-good' protection if the bear found it. And the real situation is that if you think all the odors are in the sack then you have ignored all the scents that are on your hands when you pack and touch the outside of the sack and your basic food vessel too. My Chessie can find a stone that I throw in a field of stones just on the scent left on the stone from my hands touching it. I bet bears have a better nose than she does!

An empty wrapper in your pocket is all a bear needs to find your mistakes! If you keep any kind of a food item in your tent, touch your equipment after handling fish, spit out your gum you have effectively baited a bear if one comes by. I avoid any contact with food odors around my tent, wash my hands after every meal and store all my food and trash in Bear Vaults several hundred feet from my camp. Your fishy canoe is a bait box waiting to happen too. The bear vaults weigh 2.5 pounds for the big one, 2 pounds for the half size. I carry one of each--the big one for me and the small one for dog chow (about 1.25 pounds of food per day each for man and dog). I hate the weight on portages!! I am sure they do not truly eliminate odors any better than an opsack but they are far more bear-proof than anything else. I come from NY state where they are absolutely mandatory for hikers in the High Peaks area where bears are far more numerous than in the BW and Q--and even more acclimated to humans. To date there has been only one bear that figured out how to open one, and she was shot during a recent hunting season.

One final note--shooting a bear just because it gets your food is YOUR fault, not the bears. To me the only justification for shooting a bear in the wilderness is actual aggression toward a human--otherwise you have to ask yourself why you're even out there. We don't deserve to kill bears just because we think they're inconvenient. Stay home and watch some kind of tv trash.

What is your YT channel link?

While I'm not 100% with sunnybear on everything he/she said, I do agree with the practical futility of opsacks. They may or may not contain scents inside, but it is practically impossible not to get scents on or around them when handling them.

OP, I appreciate the heads-up. No one should think that simply informing others of a bear encounter in an area is a bad idea, and that's all you were doing. It's helpful. Thanks.

Cc26: "What is your YT channel link?"

Just search Anthony Peter or anthonyp007 and my stuff should pop up. I’ve got three trips this year that will have video. Thanks!

We had 2 groups camping on Agnes who were visited by the bear.

A group had one come into camp, the kids in the group got excited, pointed at it etcetera but didn't attempt to chase it off. An adult from the group heard the "ruckus" and yelled and chased off the bear, it didn't return.

But another group of ours was out on the lake the same night & a bear came into camp and while the group was out swimming, grabbed some pants left at the shoreline (with trail mix in the front pocket) bit through the pants to get the trail mix and then was chased off. The pants were found later & the guy wore them for the rest of the day and the next day coming out.

I'm warning customers about Agnes and recommending bear barrels or vaults. If we can keep this bear from finding food, maybe it will go back to more "natural" hunting. Course, it might just decide to find another lake to settle into, but who knows.

Lake Agnes gets so much traffic from the Moose River North quota of 7/day that a Bear is inevitable. I like remote campsites that aren't used that much for their own intrinsic value but I guess that is also why I haven't had bear problems.
Little Caribou on the east side has a problem as well. Why? A Great campsite that is always filled with people and food.

People=food=bears

Okay well this sketched me out a little because we left this exact site that Friday morning! We had hear of some guys on Iron in the NW site having bear problems that Tuesday I believe.