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longblueveil
member (17)member
  
08/04/2019 09:44AM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
Looking to set up a basecamp on SAK or Knife on 8/26. We'll be paddling from EP 25 after a tow to Birch so we'll have a decent day of paddling to get there. Looking in the vicinity of sites like 1432 or 1464.

My questions are...any ballpark idea of the % of sites that will be available by midafternoon (I understand it's difficult to answer, but are we talking 0%, 50%, 100%)? Any other sites you like in the area? Any recent problem bears of fishing tips for late August/early September?
 
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TipsyPaddler
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08/04/2019 11:24AM  
I was on Knife a few days before the Memorial Day weekend this year. On a cold, rainy, windy Wednesday about 75% of the sites on Knife from around Robbins Island up to Thunder Point were already occupied. I had planned to get up to the area on Knife around site 1465 but after five hours of paddling into a steady 20+ mph NE to E headwind all the way from Birch onto Knife I started looking for a site when I hit Knife. My point is how far/fast you get may be impacted by wind and weather so have a couple best case/worst case weather route options.

I don’t know those two specific sites but I spent 2 nights on 1461. It’s rated a 4 and I would call it a 4+ if not a 5 site. It had 4-5 good tent pads, good hammock trees, nice mix of sun and shade spots, good windbreak options, great “porch” for watching sunsets and couple nice landing spots. Toilet was a reasonable distance, dry path, and in good shape. The only negatives are you can see and hear campers on site 1462 sometimes and you will see a lot of traffic headed further up Knife or into or out of SAK. I saw a lot of folks fishing the islands and bays around the site and a lot of cries of “fish on!”.

I had no issues with bears or mini bears. I did step over a fairly fresh large mammal (not human based on amount of hair!) scat pile on the Knife-Vera portage which put me on a little heightened alert for that portage.

Given the time of year you are going I would guess it’s 75-80% chance a given site will be occupied in that area but with a little luck on site turnover timing and weather you never know. I would double or triple your “target site” short list.
08/04/2019 04:15PM  
My guess is 50-95% chance a particular good site will be occupied by mid afternoon, but you just never know, you could find the place packed or near empty.

I've stayed at 1430 and 1433 on the big island of SAK. Also stayed at 1249 by Isle of Pines is a good site and good fishing in the area. Both great spots for different reasons. Keep a clean camp and don't stay at a camp site that has food thrown about and you won't have any bear problems. Bears don't want anything to do with you, but they do want your food. Have a great trip. nice area you are going to
cyclones30
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08/04/2019 10:00PM  
We stayed a night at 1434, nice site but sort of hidden from view so no sunsets from the fire grate or anything. Great site if you have a lot of hammocks to hang. Good fishing in the area. I posted a trip report in June from our trip, it took us 3 hours from the tow drop-off to put in at Knife. About another hour to get to Thunder Point and then we went into the north arm on the way in. Stayed our night on SAK on the way out.
TuscaroraBorealis
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08/05/2019 09:28AM  
Some basecamp information here.
Kalvan
member (40)member
  
08/06/2019 04:08PM  
I did your trip middle of August four years ago. Tow from LaTourell's to Birch, paddle to site 1430 on SAK. We got to camp at 3:20 PM (drove up from Minneapolis early that morning) and maybe 50% of sites were taken (we entered on a Thursday). We had a bear visit camp on our second day and we went to site 1251 on the far west side of the lake on Saturday (2 PM). Most of the sites there were open. Seems to me you'd have pretty good luck that late in the month on getting a good site.

For fishing, we were in 90F days so we had to troll deep. The only thing that worked for me was deep trolling crankbaits with some sort of orange stripe along the very bottom. I posted a picture in this thread: https://bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=forum.thread&threadId=1033866&forumID=14&confID=1
08/09/2019 08:04AM  
The campsite just south of the thunderhead is a nice site and has good fishing, hang your food have seen bear there in the past.

KarlBAndersen1
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08/10/2019 05:39AM  
1432 or 1431 will make you want to not leave.
 
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