BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
May 09 2025
Entry Point 37 - Kawishiwi Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 7
Elevation: 1653 feet
Latitude: 47.8390
Longitude: -91.1036
Kawishiwi Lake - 37
Early May Weekender
Entry Date:
May 02, 2025
Entry Point:
Kawishiwi Lake
Number of Days:
4
Group Size:
2
We headed out on Lake Kawishiwi on Friday 5/2 bright and early, reaching the lake by 7-8am. On the ride up we had quite the fright when, to our amazement, we saw 2-3 lakes still frozen solid. Our hearts sunk when we saw a band of ice stretching out around 100 yards or so from the landing on Kawishiwi, but luckily we found that the ice was nothing but slush and we were able to push right through. From then on we only ran into small isolated patches of slush on the lakes which rapidly disappeared as the weekend progressed. We were the only car in the parking lot, and I did not see a single canoe until we ran into a group of 2 canoes heading in as we were heading out on Monday. (Though my friend said a solo canoer stopped by the campsite to say hello briefly one day.)
The lake was full of all sorts of mallards, mergansers, and wood ducks, and we paddled on down to Square lake on a stream swollen with the recent rains under a cloudy sky. Rain mixed with snow made us damp, but we didn't mind knowing that the weekend would bring the sun, and warmth. Passing Square lake, we ran over a couple beaver dams on the way to Kawaschong (one under the watchful eye of its maker) and found that the portage over the largest beaver dam was flooded, so we had to clamber over the opposite side. After a quick paddle through Kawasachong, and we made our way down the two portages to Polly. The portages were flooded in spots and muddy, in spots we had to just wade through and I found that my boots were unfortunately not waterproof anymore after long years of use.
We had our pick of any campsite on Lake Polly, and we ended up choosing #1076, which was very good for 2 nights. We spent the days fishing the lake and did a day trip to Koma and fished there. The water was high, and we noted that the one campsite on the peninsula on Koma was flooded, with the fire grate half-way under water. The lack of people at the campsites and the high water made the lake feel very remote and spooky, with nothing but the tracks of wolves and moose droppings on the portages.
On Sunday we decided to bring our gear back down to Kawaschong, and stayed at a campsite there and fished.
We didn't catch a single fish, even though we tried everything we could think of - deep water, shallow water, lures, jigs, worms, nothing was biting anywhere. We only had one bite where my friend hooked on a small northern or a bass on kawaschong, but it stole his lure.
Overall, it was a great trip, with good weather in the 60s on Saturday through Monday, light wind, and solitude (and beavers) in spades. In the past few years I had gotten used to feeling stressed about finding a campsite on the way in - it was a nice change of pace this time to know that we had our pick of campsites. Anyway, that's all for now. If anyone has any insight on why the fish may not be biting that'd be good to know! (Stress from temperature changes from the rain? Pre-spawn fasting?)
