If I remember correctly, overnight paddle permits are lumped together with overnight motor? Will that make them pretty tough to get on Wednesday morning? Looking at fall lake into basswood in September.

lumped together in what way? no they're not....at least if I understand what you're asking

Lumped together in the sense they’re both included for the total permits allowed per entry date. For example, number of permits for fall lake EP is 14. Is that 14 for motor? AND 14 for non motor? Or 14 total between motor and non motor?

GTA, on this site the 14 permits available per day are listed as Overnight Paddle or Motor so it appears that they are lumped together. I am not sure how quickly these go or what dates you are planning on going in but if you know your dates I would advise that you be ready to book Wednesday morning at or around 9 am if that is your only choice for a trip.

It would be late September during the week. I’m by no means deadset on that particular EP. So if it’s not available, I’ll be fine. I have numerous non BWCA backup plans. My first choice would be an overnight motor pass through prairie portage, but thought maybe non motor might be easier to get. We’ll see what happens I guess.

I would love to see the printed rules or quidelines they use.

My understanding is they are lumped together

It's questions like these that one would expect to be answered on the reservation site itself. Alas, during the off-season, about all that it displays is an inactive button saying 'Registration Closed' and a few bits of other general information. So, we turn to resources like bwca.com to fill in the blanks...

When you're looking at an OP permit on the grid and you hover over a date is shows you only "overnight quota" and the number available out of the total quota for entering n that particular day. When you look at the OM permits, you see "overnight quota" and also "weekly quota."

My understanding: I think that in order to get an OM permit, it needs to pass through two filters -- there is a general pool of overnight permits for each EP, out of which both overnight paddle and motor permits are pulled. So first the system checks to see if all combined paddle and overnight permits for that day/EP meet or exceed the total quota limit for that day at that EP. Assuming there is room, then it checks the separate quota for number of motors allowed to enter at that EP in that specific WEEK on an overnight basis. Day Motor permits operate on a weekly quota as well, but that's a separate quota from Overnight Motors.

So for example, clearwater lake, June 1 -- There are no overnight paddle permits available, all 3 are taken for entry on that day. It shows "overnight quota: 0 of 3" available; If you go to the same day for overnight motor, it shows that 1 of the 3 weekly quota permits are indeed available, but you can't enter that specific day because the general overnight quota is full. However, if you just want to take a day trip that day, it shows that all 16 of the DM permits for that week are still available.

Good explanation, gopher. I was looking at that yesterday and grabbed a couple of screenshots and thought I might have had it figured it out somewhat myself.

Then, I ran into dates that listed 999 available, or 997 available, like this one for LLC Only. Always seemed to be on a Saturday, too. Any chance you have further explanation of that??

schweady: "Good explanation, gopher. I was looking at that yesterday and grabbed a couple of screenshots and thought I might have had it figured it out somewhat myself.

Then, I ran into dates that listed 999 available, or 997 available, like this one for LLC Only. Always seemed to be on a Saturday, too. Any chance you have further explanation of that??

"

That's wild. I just went through the whole calendar for LLC OM permits and it looks like they fixed the error with 999 permits on random Saturdays. All those numbers look normal to me now.

Re: the weekly quotas. Those are set at 999 for the entire calendar for LLC and Little Vermillion. I think this basically means there is no limit on weekly overnight motor entires at either of these EPs? Possibly because of their proximity and connection to Voyageurs?

Well, the good news is, there were plenty of available OP permits available. So I’ll be fishing basswood lake for the first time ever!