BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
July 12 2025
Entry Point 41 - Brule Lake
Number of Permits per Day: 7
Elevation: 1847 feet
Latitude: 47.9261
Longitude: -90.6448
Brule Lake - 41
Lazy, Fishless Awesome guys trip up the LIS
Entry Date:
July 15, 2015
Entry Point:
Little Indian Sioux River (north)
Number of Days:
5
Group Size:
7
I'm coming from Chicago area and 3 of my trip buddies come from the Milwaukee area. The logical place to meet up is the park 'n ride in Madison, so we do exactly that.
I was nervous about fitting 4 grown men, 4 grown men's camping gear, PLUS 4 sets of golf clubs in my van. It turned out to be no problem. I swear there is no car that offers more space and utility than a minivan. The amount of cargo room with the seats folded down is unmatched.
So we're on the road...never a group to take things slowly or miss an opportunity for fun, we have a 3:00pm tee time at The Wilderness on the shores of Vermillion. Nothing like spending the afternoon/evening before your trip on the golf course.
We make it at about 2:59 (perfect timing) - meet up with the 3 other guys in our group that came from the Twin Cities, jump into the carts and hit the first tee. What an awesome golf course. It was a gorgeous evening and we had a blast out there.
Finished at about sunset and headed to Ely for supplies and dinner. Can't honestly remember the restaurant, but they had a good burger. Bait shops were all closed, but one of the gas stations had some leeches for us.
Headed to Echo Trail outfitters on Fenske Lake and found the bunkhouse. It was probably well after midnight before we got settled.
I'm coming from Chicago area and 3 of my trip buddies come from the Milwaukee area. The logical place to meet up is the park 'n ride in Madison, so we do exactly that.
I was nervous about fitting 4 grown men, 4 grown men's camping gear, PLUS 4 sets of golf clubs in my van. It turned out to be no problem. I swear there is no car that offers more space and utility than a minivan. The amount of cargo room with the seats folded down is unmatched.
So we're on the road...never a group to take things slowly or miss an opportunity for fun, we have a 3:00pm tee time at The Wilderness on the shores of Vermillion. Nothing like spending the afternoon/evening before your trip on the golf course.
We make it at about 2:59 (perfect timing) - meet up with the 3 other guys in our group that came from the Twin Cities, jump into the carts and hit the first tee. What an awesome golf course. It was a gorgeous evening and we had a blast out there.
Finished at about sunset and headed to Ely for supplies and dinner. Can't honestly remember the restaurant, but they had a good burger. Bait shops were all closed, but one of the gas stations had some leeches for us.
Headed to Echo Trail outfitters on Fenske Lake and found the bunkhouse. It was probably well after midnight before we got settled.
Rain stopped at some point before bedtime and the site was drying out nicely - it was looking to be a damn fine day. We did some fishing - once again nothing was caught. We did some swimming, some more fishing....talked about various excursions that were available to us (head east to check out Heritage, south to check out Agawato, back over to Little Shell where a group had told us fish were biting the day before, etc)...but alas laziness won out and we were loving our little corner of Lynx Lake. The fish were still not biting, but we were soaking up the sun and just enjoying a lazy day. We did snag 2 bass and fried them up - 2 fish for 7 guys barely got us a taste, but it was something.
At some point the previous day we had decided to pack up today and head for a site on Shell. We needed to meet our outfitter back at EP 14 at 10:30am (or maybe 11) the following morning (one of the guys in the group had a flight to catch out of MSP on Sunday afternoon). We kept track of how long it took us to get to our site on Lynx and knew that this put us in a position where we'd have to pack up very early on Sunday and even then it would have been no easy task to make it out by that pre-arranged time had we stayed on Lynx. And we didn't want to make the outfitter wait.
So we packed up and decided to take the route through Heritage rather than go back down around through Little Shell. Portaged to Heritage, then portaged to Shell, no problems. Immediately see that the northern con island site was now predictably claimed. The other 2 sites on the island were also plugged. We paddled south around the other island and the site down there was also taken. We turned west and discovered the two sites on the southwest corner of Shell were open - we took the one closest to the portage because we liked it better. It was a fine site.
We got set up and I went out with 2 others in our 3-man, determined to catch some fish. We hit the bay in the southernmost part of Shell...paddled to the back of it and let the wind drift us north and east...we did this three times and caught a fish every time - a pike, a walleye and a smallie. THIS was the spot! Finally.
One problem...that wind that was helping us troll right over the fish kept getting stronger and stronger. By the 4th time we tried our paddle and drift plan, it pushed us out of the bay and half way down the lake before our lines were in the water for more than a few seconds. I had no interest in getting pushed straight across the lake, so the fishing wasn't meant to be. We headed back to camp and spent the afternoon being lazy and swapping stories while listening to the wind howl through camp...nobody was about go back on the lake.
Had a nice evening save for about a 30-minute period that featured a swarm of mosquitoes unlike any I've ever seen. It was brutal, but thankfully fairly short-lived. 
Got packed up and headed out - we were camped right around the corner from our first portage so that put us on track for an easy exit. Food/drink pack significantly lighter on the way out!
Only issue getting out was the amount of folks we were sharing portages with...there were two groups we seemed to be going out with, and group after group after group heading in. A July Sunday morning on Shell/Pauness/Little Indian Sioux and the connecting portages has to be about the busiest section of the boundary waters I've ever seen.
We got out on time which pleased the outfitter. They took our canoes and we headed back to Fenske Lake cabins and showered up. Got back on the road and alllllllllll the way back to Chicago by about midnight.
It was a great trip. Weather cooperated for the most part, save for some evening rain one night, and the wind one afternoon...it's never going to be perfect.