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March 29 2024

Entry Point 14 - Little Indian Sioux River North

Little Indian Sioux River (north) entry point allows overnight paddle only. This entry point is supported by La Croix Ranger Station near the city of Ely, MN. The distance from ranger station to entry point is 32 miles. Access is a 40-rod portage heading North from the Echo Trail.

Number of Permits per Day: 6
Elevation: 1364 feet
Latitude: 48.1466
Longitude: -92.2103

Pine Lake base camping, Aug. 2016

by deadriver
Trip Report

Entry Date: August 02, 2016
Entry Point: Trout Lake
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 7

Trip Introduction:
Highlights: Some fish – a sh*t mouse (?!) – UFO

Report


Thursday, June 17, 2010

It's with a bit of sadness that I realize today is our last full day; tomorrow we pack up and leave. And the wind has picked up again, so it's back to spinners for us today. Maybe this turns out to be a good thing, because this morning I hook the biggest northern of my life. Not a real monster, but my personal best. I cannot land him from the canoe, so when the wind blows us into shore I step out and bring him into the shallows where I can pick him up with two hands. I have managed to pick him up in a very awkward grip, so I put him back down to adjust my hand position so I can pose for a few more photos. My barbed lure is all the way thru his mouth and out the side, so it won't hurt to lay him in the shallows for just a second. I place him back in the water, and in the time it takes me to switch my hand position this houdini of a fish has somehow manged to spit the lure and is casually swimming out to sea as I just stand there and watch; dumbfounded at how quickly it happened! I'm a bit depressed, but my brother did get me on video fighting and landing him, and I do have the one photo as proof that it really happened, so eventually I have gotten over it. [paragraph break] We catch a few decent size smallmouth in the 1 lb+ range, but nothing else to brag about so we go back to camp for breakfast. Since it's pretty windy today, and since we have already daytripped to the lakes above and below Boot, we decide to stay on Boot and fish the southern end of it where we will be at least somewhat sheltered from the southern wind. I catch another respectable northern, which somewhat eases my pain from losing the one in the morning. [paragraph break]We eventually get tired of fighting the wind, so we beach on an island at the southern end of boot to stretch our legs and fish from shore. Ken fishing from the island.[paragraph break]The skies are clouding up and we are having no luck from the island so we decide to head back to camp. We pull into a sheltered bay on the way back, and it's nice to get out of the wind. A light rain starts as we casually paddle and fish in this welcome shelter. All of a sudden one of us looks up and notices that the sky is looking black, and we hear the rumble of approaching thunder. We hurry back to camp, and not more than a few minutes later the skies open up! [paragraph break]We are happy that we set up a tarp for just such an occasion as this, and for a while we sit under it reading and snacking and watching the show. There are some incredibly loud thunderclaps that sound as if lightning must have struck pretty close to us. After a while though, the rain is so hard and steady that trickles start to flow in little rivers under the tarp. We sit up on life jackets for a while, but it gets to be too much and we both retreat to our tents. [paragraph break]Once in my tent I discover that it is not 100% waterproof; rain has come in through the windows I think, and formed a bunch of puddles. Luckily my sleeping bag was on a pad and has not acted as a sponge soaking up these puddles. I break out a camp towel and a pot and spend the next 20 minutes or so blotting and squeezing to get the small lakes down to merely wet spots. I'm envious of Ken over in his dry tent, but later I discover he had the exact same situation I had. The rain eventually tapers off and stops long enough for us to cook and eat dinner, and for a brief spell the sun even manages to break through right at sunset.