Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

BWCA First Timers- EP26 Wood Lake
by minnesotashooter

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 07/05/2010
Entry & Exit Point: Wood Lake (EP 26)
Number of Days: 4
Group Size: 3
Day 3 of 4
Wednesday, July 07, 2010

We got up around 7:30 and had bacon and eggs and decided that today we would head into Good Lake. Found the portage to Hula, short and sweet with lots of bugs though. Hula is a lily pad, grass filled lake. Not sure it is worth fishing. Found the portage to Good. This portage is longer, muddy and not in the best shape. We think we found a wolf print on the portage though. Got to Good Lake, not a soul in sight. Both campsites were empty and nobody on the lake. We did see one solo canoer as she was coming out of Basswood. Fishing on Good was good, mostly bass and northerns. We found both species right in the weeds right out in front of the portage and we really didn't venture from there too much as we were catching a lot of fish. Had shore lunch of some walleyes we caught the day before on Wood Lake and we used the campsite in the narrows that is high up above the lake, it has a beautiful view. Filled our bellies with fresh walleyes, that was awesome. We kept a few northerns and several large sunfish from Good for supper that night. Portaged back to Wood for the evening. My buddy got quite a few leeches on him at the landing at Hula when we were coming back to Wood and he didn't notice them until later in the day, nasty little creatures. He itched for days where they were attached. Had fish tacos for supper and then hit a rock reef on Wood in the evening. This reef isn't far from the campsite and we hit the jackpot on nice walleyes. They were aggressive and mostly in the 19-21 inch range. We were throwing any shallow running crankbaits we could find and they were hitting everything we threw. It was great fun. Did that until around 9 and then went back to camp. The mosquitoes were so bad that we ended up just going to bed earlier than expected.