Anyone know of good websites to print free topographic maps from? Do you find these helpful in locating fishing areas? Is there an advantage to bringing them with on a trip versus simple visual recognition?

Mytopo is one site where you can do this. Navigation and fishing are two good reasons to bring along maps. Marking campsites can be useful if not down right essential. Navionics will give you bathymetric data (contours of the lake bottoms) for fishing. Just a few thoughts.

You might also look at topozone.com

You can find a lot of the contour maps for the lakes in the BWCA on the MN DNR Lake Finder site. Select the "Lake Depth" on the left side under Lake Maps. For Example, Crooked Lake Maps page has several depth maps of the lake. A lot of them are older, but still relevant.

If you are looking for topographic maps of the surrounding land, check out the maps section here or on a printed map such as a Fisher or McKenzie. Some lakes do have the lake contour info on the printed Fisher or McKenzie maps too.