A friend and I are going on our first trip to the BWCA. We want to fish for walleye and northern pike. We would like to stay in the woods for about a week. Does anybody know of any good nothern or walleye lakes that we could go to for our first time?? Thanks for all your help.

O-Dog

We'll be going in the first week of August.

Disappointment Lake is a great one for Northerns. Only one "short" portage and a "short" paddle from the public entry on Snowbank. It's pretty and has numerous campsites too...

I'm looking on the canoecountry.com website and can't find dissapointment lake. Would I have to go through snowbank lake first??? Thanks.

Owen

Disappointment is accessed via Snowbank either directly or through Parent (Round) Lake. It's a shorter paddle to the Parent portage from the public access on Snowbank. But, it's not too much further to paddle to the Disappointment portage. Go here: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/index.html and type in "disappointment" to locate. It is lake ID # 38048800. You can see lake info & maps, etc. there. Hope this helps!

Two years ago our group went to Insula, going back there again this year. Rumor had it that the MN State record Walleye had been caught there, not sure how that would be verified though. We had very good success catching Northerns in the shallow bays on big spoons (Bronze/Orange). Best method for Walleyes on that trip was drifting or slow trolling with Lindy rigs. Make sure you have your hiking boots on when you make that last portage from Hudson to Insula, it's uphill....both ways! Hope this helps...good luck.

Aug

Fraser Lake, NW of Thomas. Had the whole lake to ourselves (several years ago), if I remember correctly, the first four cast yielded 3 pike, continued to be good using spinner baits. Walleye was excellent too.

You don't have a permit yet?

There are very few permits left for the first 2 weeks of August.

Best thing to do first is find out where there are still permits for the day you want to start and go from there.

Cross your fingers that something good is left! :-)