Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Crab Lake/ Joining The Solo Club
by sid41

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 06/11/2008
Entry & Exit Point: Crab Lake and Cummings from Burntside Lake (EP 4)
Number of Days: 6
Group Size: 1
Day 5 of 6
Sunday, June 15, 2008

I had a leisurely paddle down Little Crab to the portage in to Crab. The portage was an easy and short walk. I figured I would setup camp on Crab and fish the day as my take out tow was due at 10:00am the next morning. I started to check out sites on Crab and the wind picked up. I was shooting for one of the 2 sites in the bay where the portage to Burntside was but they appeared to be taken. I decided to paddle back the long west arm of Crab and see if I could get out of the wind. I checked the first site on the southern shore back the arm and yuk! It had one tent site and it was very exposed to the wind. There was moss pulled up and scattered all over the tent site which turned me off and you could see green bows were cut buy the previous inhabitants. The site was a 1 star site and with the tree and moss abuse I moved on.

The site across the bay towards the Sacca Lake portage was very nice. It had 2 nice tent sites, was sheltered from the west wind, and it had an excellent landing. I gave it 4 stars. I caught lot of smallies, large mouth, and pike around the site and in the back bays. There was a resident beaver which kept coming to the site landing and scoping me out. I napped at around 1:00pm and woke up to the sound of a moose thumping through the woods just outside my tent. There is a marshy area over the hill from the site which is where he must have been heading as he snorted loudly. I had a very leisurely day around camp and fishing while trying to eat up more of my food stash.