Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Wood Lake May 2014
by adludwig

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 05/22/2014
Entry & Exit Point: Wood Lake (EP 26)
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 4
Day 4 of 5
Sunday, May 25, 2014

Woke up on Day 4 and started by preparing another dish that was inspired by a recipe I saw on this site. Made a big breakfast of Cheesy Hashbrowns with Spam and dried apricots. Very hearty meal to start the day!


The weather was looking pretty good, so we decided to try and journey out to some different lakes today. We headed out for the portage to Hula Lake and enjoyed all the bald eagles all over the place!

We spotted the portage to Good Lake, but we decided to see what lies ahead on the river. Our original plan was to take the river to Indiana Lake and then portage over to Good Lake. Several rapids, beaver dams, and ridiculously shallow spots in the river, we gave up on our pursuit of Indiana Lake. By then, we were so wet, sore, and defeated we did not even want to try and get to Good. We had heard that people catch pike in Hula so we paddled down to the Southwest corner and starting catching northerns at a pretty good pace. As we move back toward the portage to Wood, the pike fishing got better and better, to the point where we enjoyed about 3 straight hours of non-stop pike action. Nothing really huge was caught, but it sure made us forget about our failed journey just hours earlier.

We did decide to break for it back to camp to allow half the day's worth of sun to dry our boots, pants, and what-nots. After a light lunch, we decided it was time to truly focus on the smallmouth bass we had been catching all over the lake. We geared up and went out, with nothing but smallies on the mind. We were not let down!

We experience some of the greatest smallmouth bass fishing I have ever been a part of!

We went to shore to make the "last supper" as our time was quickly coming to a close. We fried up a large batch of fish and then cooked up everything in our food pack that wasn't for tomorrow's breakfast. A feast was had!

One last night with a little bit of fishing and the slow, sinking feeling of knowing the trip is nearly done. Went to bed a little on the earlier side tonight, the little bit of travel did 2 things: 1) just plain tuckered us out and 2) took away from our designated nap time in the afternoon.