Hey all,

I am taking my boys on their first trip along with their grandpa who has not been to the BWCA in 20+ years.

I was late getting my permit so we are starting on Wood Lake. I have never been to this area. If anyone has any fishing advice, that would be great.

My thought is to fish our way to "Good Lake" and base camp there.

I am open to ANY suggestions.

Hi LumberJack,

Wood and Good are great lakes and you should do well fishing both. I've been through there 6-8 times in the last three years and we've always done well - always bringing young children and first-time BWCA-ers. A few thoughts:

1) Northerns are pretty much everywhere and we caught them on just about everything we tried. I'm confident you'll catch pike on both Wood and Good. Plenty of hammer handles in Hula as you pass through there but I don't think anything grows very big in that lake. If you make it over to Indiana, a beautiful lake with crystal clear water, you could catch a big pike. Paddle around the shorelines deep enough you can barely see the bottom and eventually, you'll see a "log" swim away.

2) Smallies - in late May I will guess they will be active and we paddle the shores casting rapalas, bucktails, and spoons - again, always catch smallies on these two lakes. We also got into the smallies on whopper ploppers (my younger kids love 'em!) and other topwaters and had a great week of fishing two years ago.

3) Walleye - I'm not the best walleye fisherman but we always manage to catch some. Slow trolling nightcrawlers (caught in camp) worked really well for us - my 7-year-old at the time caught her first walleye, a 29 incher, and she has been ruined ever since! Fishing the narrows on Wood and Good with bucktails got us a few walleyes too. And leeches from camp have worked for walleyes. So we've always caught some, but not very many and that is probably due mostly to my lack of experience for walleye.

4) Large Mouth - yep, caught 'em on all three lakes, mostly randomly, so I'm not sure of what advice to give except keep a line wet.

We've camped on Wood and day-tripped to Good/Indiana as well as stayed on Good. Can't go wrong, just however it works out. I haven't fished Basswood but you'll find plenty of folks that catch more and bigger fish and Good is a short portage from that fishery.

There are giant snapping turtles in the area too - super cool! I've seen bears on half of the trips into Wood, once in camp, but never a nuisance and always easily scared off. Wood seems to be loon central and I've spent the better part of nights listening to a dozen or so going berserk.

If you post your email, I can mark up a map and send it to you with more information and advice...and happy to share some pics once or twice a week of successful fish caught in the area just to get you excited!

My advice is nowhere near as good or specific as the previous but I’ll throw my two cents in.

If you aren’t catching smallies shallow that time of year they are likely staging and getting ready to spawn. Jigs with leeches (preferably) or plastics will get them deeper near the shallow areas.

Walleyes should be shallow, leeches fished with jigs and/or slip bobbers should get them. Concentrate on moving water if you can find any.

Good luck!!!!

Thanks for the great info!

tomsewell30@gmail.com

Lumberjack1017: "Thanks for the great info!

tomsewell30@gmail.com "

Hey Lumberjack... welcome to BWCA.com.

As a public service announcement... you can make your email available by going to your profile and "unclicking" the box that says "Hide my email address..." (then click 'Save'.) After you do that, you will then see a little envelope under your name on the left side of your posts. If you look at my name on the left side of this post, you'll see the little envelope that I'm referencing.

It's up to you if you want to do that, but since you posted your email, I thought you might like to know.

Lumberjack1017: "Thanks for the great info!


tomsewell30@gmail.com "

email sent

I couldn’t give as good of advice as YetiJedi did if I tried…

But I will say that that time of year it’s very important to make a sure you have really good sleeping pads. Thick and well insulated, with a good bag to sleep in… that ground stays cold and will suck the heat out of you if you don’t have the right gear. There’s nothing worse than poor nights sleep while on your trip.

Thanks. I have my own gear but the others will be renting. We reserved the “platinum” package, so I’m hoping they set them up well.

Take a day trip into Basswood to see the sunken logging equipment. The first bay in basswood right off of the portage has served us well fishing too, lots of northern.

Been to Wood Lake twice now, great fishing lake. Caught lots of walleyes on Wood and bass and northern in Good. The campsite on Good Lake is spectacular but hard to get to since its way on top of a hill but the view is awesome. You shouldn't have any difficulty finding fish on either lake. Personally, i'd skip Hula for fishing and concentrate on Good/Wood. Ive always wanted to try Indiana as well but weve never ventured that far.

There are plenty of trip reports on Wood/Good