BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
April 03 2025
Entry Point 70 - North Fowl Lake *
Number of Permits per Day: 2
Elevation: 1256 feet
Latitude: 48.0543
Longitude: -90.0540
North Fowl Lake * - 70
2022 Wood (EP-26) to Fall (EP-24)
Entry Date:
July 10, 2022
Entry Point:
Wood Lake
Exit Point:
Fall Lake (24)
Number of Days:
7
Group Size:
9
The portage into Wood was pretty easy, but seemed longer than I thought it would be. Joel dropped his knife on his way down the portage, so I went back to try to find it. After making it all the way back to the gravel parking lot, I had not found his knife. As I started back down the portage, I prayed to God that if it was His will that I find Joel's knife, then please let me find it, and if not, then so be it. 2 or 3 steps later, his knife was laying on the side of the portage. Praise the Lord! 
Once I arrived back at Wood Lake, the canoes were loaded and we begin to paddle. Noah, Joel, and Colman lead the way.
As we paddle across Wood Lake, we noticed some large white birds on the island in the south end of Wood Lake. I belive they are Trumpter Swans.
Levi likes to stop and have his picture taken on rocks, so we stop for this one.
The portage from Wood to Hula seemed short and was a pretty easy portage. Our group makes quick work of this portage and we quickly paddle across Hula. The portage from Hula to Good was a little longer, but again we make it across with ease. Once on Good, we paddle down to the narrows to see if the site there is open. We are in luck, and make this site our stopping point for the day. The site at the narrows of Wood is a very nice site with plenty of room for tents as well as good trees for hammocks. It has a great view of the lake from the firegrate. The only down side is the climb from the water up to camp. This site sets up 50-60 feet the above water. In my opinion, it is well worth the climb.
After setting up camp, it rains for about a half hour. After the rain, we decide to try our luck fishing on Good. While fishing we see deer on the shoreline on the west side of the lake. We also saw a beaver swimming along the southern shoreline. Levi made friends with a dragonfly. Noah caught 3 northern pike, Colman caught crawfish and a snapping turtle, Joel caught 11 northern pike and a small mouth bass. Joel's largest northern pike was the biggest of the trip.
After fishing, we head back to camp, and have dinner. After dinner, the it begins to rain again. Levi has had a loose tooth for a few days, and finally pulled it today. Hopefully the Tooth Fairy will find her way to the BWCA. Today was a Great day!!
Woke up this morning and everyone is feeling pretty tired. We decided to take a layover day since the sky is looking like rain. After breakfast and hanging around camp for a while relaxing, then lunch, we decided to go for a paddle and portage over to Indiana Lake. (Since we are all from the great state of Indiana, it only seems proper to visit the lake named after our home state.) Since we are travelling light, the paddle and portage into Indiana seems to go by very easily. We catch a few northern pike on Good before getting to the portage. The portage is pretty muddy and buggy today, probably due to all the recent rain.
It is a pretty easy portage, up then down. Levi and I talked about how we missed Mom and how we hope she's having fun without us at home. Once on Indiana, the wind picks up quite a bit. Everyone don's their PFD and we begin to fish Indiana. The water is amazingly clear, and the bass are on fire. After getting blown around by the wind for a while and catching our share of bass, we decide to head back to camp. 
As we paddle back across Good, Levi picks up a nice Walleye in the narrows of Good. 
Once back to camp, we spend some more time relaxing, journaling, and then make dinner. We have fish, and make our version of pizza. (Tortilla's with tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni) Tonight we eat like Kings! 
Everyone enjoyed our relaxing day today, ready to get some sleep so we can make our way up to Basswood tomorrow.
We paddle Good Creek into Hoist Bay. On the way we have to pull over a beaver dam.
Once on Hoist Bay, we paddle over to check out the submerged logging equipment. With the water levels, it isn't hard to locate the cab of an old peice of machinery. 
Joel catches a nice small mouth bass while we are in the area.
As we paddle through the motor boat area of Basswood, we begin to worry if we'll find a site that isn't occupied today. We notice several motor boats fishing, and all of the sites within the motor use area are occupied. We are excited to find a great site just north of the motor area and decide to make it home for the night. We stay on the middle site on the northeast side of Washington Island. It has great views of the lake on 3 sides, several tent pads, and plenty of hammock hangs. There is a great area for swimming too on the west side of the site. About the time we get camp set up, it decides to rain for about an hour, then clears off to sunny skies again. We fish most of the afternoon, and continue to catch more fish.
We make fish taco's for dinner. Joel talks about brining Taco Bell hot sauce packets for fish taco's next year. 
My trip partner, Jarod, and I got a nice early start to Grand Marais for some breakfast. Jarod and I have paddled together on and off for 20 years. We hadn't been into the Boundary Waters together for the last year and a half, so we were excited to get back out there, exploring somewhere neither of us had ever been. Our first stop of the day was at South of the Border Cafe for a good and hearty breakfast. Then we headed West on our 45 minute drive to the lake. We were excited to have the canoe loaded in the water right around 7:00am. I am a big fan of these early start days, because it truly is like getting an extra day on the water.
We had planned on staying some where near Cone Bay, to accommodate our plans for day tripping. We had also been watching the weather and knew we were in for a fair bit of wind out of the south most of the time. As we made our way through the maze of islands towards Cone Bay, we thought we would check out campsite #954 on the big island, just south of Cone Bay. We passed a few canoes heading out nice and early this morning and had thought that one of the groups had just left the island. We pulled up on the island and immediately knew this was going to be our home. Beautiful, open and spacious site that faced the north and would keep us out of all those southern winds. We set up the tent, hung the food pack, and set the rest of camp. Before we knew it, we were working on putting our rods and reels together. We headed out to start exploring this vast lake. The wind was increasing already, so we decided to head into Cone Bay, to find a little shelter. It took a little while, but soon I got jolted on a white spinnerbait and landed the first fish of the trip, a nice little smallmouth. 
As we headed down the north shore of Cone Bay, I looked up and saw a black bear right on the shoreline! I excitedly yelled the location to Jarod, and of course it disappeared into the brush before he could see it. We lingered for a while, hoping to catch another glimpse, but it didn't happen. We had a light lunch, so our bellies started getting hungry for dinner. We made our way back to camp into a stiff south wind. There wasn't a lot of wind, but it made the paddle a little tough. We got back to camp and started preparing dinner. [paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] Our tradition, like many others, is to bring in steaks for the first night. This helps us not get too sick of fish, and is always a treat after a first day filled with paddling, portaging, and setting camp. The steaks and instant mashed potatoes were divine![paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] After dinner and cleanup, we broke out the poles to do some slip bobber fishing from shore. We wrangled up a little bit of live bait on our way north. Our plan was to just save the bait for our time around camp, which ended up working just fine. Jarod was fishless for the day yet, but that changed pretty quick. He caught a little smallmouth before dark, which was exciting, knowing that we would be able to catch some fish from our camp site.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] We fished for a while longer, all the while, enjoying the beautiful sunset. We had quite the nice sitting area next to the water for our evening. We would use this area every night while either fishing or just watching the sunsets.[paragraph break] 
Saturday morning started with a hearty breakfast. I like to try a couple of new things every year, and this year one of the things I wanted to try was biscuits and gravy. I found some packages of just add water biscuits and sausage gravy mix at Menards, that we were going to pair with some Johnsonville pre-cooked breakfast sausages. Jarod tackled the biscuits, which needed to be oven cooked according to the directions. Jarod used two pans and plenty of butter to make some drop biscuits. As he worked on those, I browned up the sausages and then as the biscuits were close to done, I made the gravy. This ended up being the best breakfast I had ever had Up North! It was the perfect serving amount for 2 of us and I believe it cost me under $5.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] Our game plan for the day was going to be to head up the Cone Lakes and get out of the wind. We made our way up the quaint little portages all the way to North Cone. We started fishing on the Western side of the lake, letting the wind push us down the lake. I was jigging on the drop off when I got my first strike! I was using my ultralight with 2 pound test line, and knew I was in for a battle! The fish stayed deep and was heavy. I was hoping for a big old walleye, but suddenly a large northern came to the surface. After a few good runs, Jarod wrangled it in his little net, which was quite the entertaining chain of events.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] We never got a true measurement on the fish, but we estimated it at 30 inches. It was a gorgeous, thick and healthy fish. After a few photos we let it go and kept on fishing. We worked the point on the eastern shoreline, but even on this small lake the wind was becoming an issue. We pushed down the finger of the lake on the eastern side and I started catching smallmouth bass with some regularity. In fact, I had landed 5 fish in a very short amount of time.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] We paddled back to make another pass in an area that was full of fish. On the second pass, Jarod finally struck his first fish of the day![paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] After catching a few more, we headed for Middle Cone Lake. We had a nice chat with a family that was just coming into the lake as we were leaving. We had told them we had some luck fishing and pointed them to the "hot spot". The little bit of water moving out of this lake was pretty cool, so we stopped for a couple photos.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] We were getting a little hungry, so before fishing we thought we would stop for lunch on Middle Cone. We had passed the campsite on the western shore on our way through earlier. The site was still open, so we pulled ashore. The site isn't much to write home about. We ate our summer sausage and crackers, while the wind whipped pretty good on this little lake. The site was almost completely on a side hill, so it didn't see too desirable as an actual spot to camp.[paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] The bite on Middle Cone was fairly slow. We got a bass right after starting to fish, then went all the way down the lake on the southern shore, and only caught one more little smallmouth. We were ready to get back to camp now, so we started making our way back. When we hit Brule, we knew we were in for a workout! We had paddled in to a pretty good breeze yesterday, but the wind was roaring now. We systematically made our way back to the campsite, hiding behind every point or island we could on the way. Finally it was time to cross the last chunk of big water. We slowly made our way through the three foot rollers. I was so glad to have a trustworthy paddle partner in front of me this trip! It was a little nerve-wracking, but I never felt out of control. We landed at camp, and almost immediately started work on dinner. We cleaned fish and made the now famous fish tacos. We chunked up the fish and breaded it with a combination of Cajun Shorelunch and Penzy's Taco Seasoning. We fried up the fish nice and crispy, even a little charred. Then we threw them in a tortilla along with shredded cabbage (coleslaw mix), lime juice, and Chipotle Mayo. Everyone loves taco night![paragraph break] 
[paragraph break] After dinner we once again bobber fished and watched the sunset. It had been a great day. We made plans for the next day and watched the sunset until we were drowsy.[paragraph break] 