We planned to hit the road from Central Iowa for the 7 hour trip around 7AM. When I arrived at Brad’s to pick up him and Jason, Brad let the group know that he would not be going. He had been dealing with a medical issue that he thought he might be able to work through but ultimately decided it would put a damper on the trip for him and possibly add a lot of work for us. So we took off around 7:15 and with a short stop at Cabellas south of the cities we made it to Duluth in time to grab a round of drinks just after lunch at Bent Paddle. After that quick pit stop, we headed to Ely and made it in time to grab a good dinner at the Boathouse (always get the Poutine), and have a round of drinks. We bought an extra and let it sit full during our dinner in honor of our missing man.

We headed out of town for our overnight stop at Lodge of the Whispering Pines. Denise was very accommodating of our group. After hemming and hawing about whether we wanted to do a 2 man and a solo, a 3 man, or a 4 man canoe, we landed on a 3 man. This turned out to be a good decision for our group. We spent the rest of the evening doing final preparations, which included paring down our food to only 1 MRE per person for our last night’s meal which would be “emergency rations” in the case that we couldn’t catch enough Walleye to add a meal or two. This would prove to be overkill.

We planned to hit the road from Central Iowa for the 7 hour trip around 7AM. When I arrived at Brad’s to pick up him and Jason, Brad let the group know that he would not be going. He had been dealing with a medical issue that he thought he might be able to work through but ultimately decided it would put a damper on the trip for him and possibly add a lot of work for us. So we took off around 7:15 and with a short stop at Cabellas south of the cities we made it to Duluth in time to grab a round of drinks just after lunch at Bent Paddle. After that quick pit stop, we headed to Ely and made it in time to grab a good dinner at the Boathouse (always get the Poutine), and have a round of drinks. We bought an extra and let it sit full during our dinner in honor of our missing man.

We headed out of town for our overnight stop at Lodge of the Whispering Pines. Denise was very accommodating of our group. After hemming and hawing about whether we wanted to do a 2 man and a solo, a 3 man, or a 4 man canoe, we landed on a 3 man. This turned out to be a good decision for our group. We spent the rest of the evening doing final preparations, which included paring down our food to only 1 MRE per person for our last night’s meal which would be “emergency rations” in the case that we couldn’t catch enough Walleye to add a meal or two. This would prove to be overkill.

After a 45 minute teardown of the Amok setup (I am either wildly inefficient or it’s way too much work for me), we were ready to head out. With Iron Lake in our sights, we set off to the northwest. The portage at the northeast end of Stuart is really neat with a sand beach. That portage was the most challenging I’ve tackled in 3 trips to the BWCA as there was a ton of blowdown and it’s not a short portage. I would rate it a 7-8 in terms of difficulty because of the combination of length and portage maintenance. The other portages into Iron were easy and short and the lakes were neat. Very little use of the campsites between Stuart and Iron.

We talked with a group at the portage before Iron and they said the island site near Peterson Bay was open so we set our sights on that. The site was still open and boy was it a treat. Huge site with a great kitchen area. Kitchen area had a couple nice staging areas on each side of the fire grate and a “coffee table” in front of the grate. I took a quick lake swim to wash the portage grime off, rinsed out my old clothes and put on my extra set of clothes. I was a bit disappointed to see some BWCA fouls- Bubba, nobody cares that you were there so there’s no reason to let us know by writing on the fire grate. I also spent about 15 minutes scouting a good spot for a hammock hang and after finding a nice spot west of the kitchen area and setting up my tarp, I noticed a walleye carcass on the rocks right in front of my setup. I decided to dispose of the carcass but move my setup as I didn’t have a lot of desire to sleep next to the scents that were inevitably leftover.

We fished around the mouth of Peterson Bay and caught some walleye for dinner. I also caught a perch, which made 4 species on the trip for me, a personal record - Perch, walleye, smallie, and pike. We fileted the walleye and had that as an appetizer to add to our dehydrated sausage and Hot Cheeto Mac & Cheese. With the breeze, we decided against having a fire and cooked our walleye and mac & cheese over the jet boil with a makeshift stove setup. Great weather for the day with a high of 76 and sunny skies, but some smoke from the Canadian wildfires degraded the visibility.        

After a lazy morning around camp, we headed up to Curtain Falls for a day trip late morning. The falls are spectacular, a truly impressive piece of nature. I feel very fortunate to have been able to experience that, and the fact that I am lucky enough to have friends who entertain my designs of seeing cool things and putting in a lot of work to see them is not lost on me. Curtain this year and Basswood Falls last year are two things that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Despite being a warm afternoon, the fishing at the falls was HOT. It was like fishing in an aquarium. Between the three of us, we probably lost 20 ned rig setups in the rocks at the falls, but that was a high risk-high reward endeavor as we caught our traditional 3 walleye for our appetizer and started putting everything back. I switched over to the fly rod since I had caught some nice fish just to see what I could get on that and caught a nice smallie on the fly, my first ever. After an hour or so there, we decided to venture back to the campsite. The wind had picked up considerably, so it was a longer paddle back.

Back at camp, we fileted the walleye and had an appetizer. We were so full that we didn’t end up making the dehydrated chicken and just had a quick mac & cheese dinner. I got an update on my Zoleo from my wife that there were some storms in the area so we battened down the hatches and prepared for a night of storms. My Amok was a bit disappointing as the wind was blowing some rain in despite me having everything as low as I could have it. We rode out the lightning and made it through to the other side in one piece.        

We packed up a wet camp and set out for the return trip to Stuart Lake. That portage on the northeast end of Stuart was everything we remembered it being, but knowing what we were getting into was good as we decided to take it slow and not try to push too hard.

We grabbed the campsite on the point on the north end of Stuart and settled in for what would be a rainy and windy night. Between the rain sessions, we were able to rehydrate some chicken and rice for dinner. We caught some walleye off the rocks on the east side of the campsite, but decided we were not feeling up to fileting out the walleye and the cleanup. I also had another 30” or so pike on who snapped me off (again no leader- what an idiot). Side note, there was a 12” skillet left there when we arrived, so I wasn’t sure if they were coming back through that way so we hung it on a tree if the owner returned looking for it. We decided to have an early night knowing that the next day would be a long one with our trip out and a long drive, so we all packed it in and called it an early night.  

We tore down camp and were on the water by 7AM for a nice trip back down the Stuart River. It was an uneventful trip back. We came across a number of moose tracks on portages, and one baby deer that a predator had taken down toward the end of the last portage out of Stuart River. We were off the river by 12:15, quick celebratory beer at the EP, and then headed to Lodge of the Whispering Pines for a quick shower before lunch at the Boathouse. After a late lunch, we headed south and decided to stop in Duluth for the night as we wouldn’t get back to central Iowa until 11 or so and we were all pretty tired. We spent the night exploring Duluth and enjoying one last night of great company.

Overall a fantastic trip. I know that initial portage into the Stuart River might scare some away, but it isn’t terrible and is worth every step. We were fortunate to have pretty good weather and made some memories that we will all carry with us for the rest of our lives. We will be back to the BWCA next year, hopefully with 4 men rather than three.