The Joy of Adversarial Weather and a Bushwhacking Fever Dream
by asaboy
Trip Type:
Paddling Canoe
Entry Date:
09/03/2025
Entry & Exit Point:
Kawishiwi Lake (EP 37)
Number of Days:
6
Group Size:
3
Discuss Trip:
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Day 5 of 6
Sunday, September 07, 2025
Makwa to Polly for Walleye dinner
~Makwa Lake, Panhandle Lake, Pan Lake, Anit Lake, Kivaniva Lake, Malberg Lake, Koma Lake, Polly, Lake
We broke camp early, around 7AM, encountered the first group since Malberg on Day 1, who must have gotten up early to meet us exiting Makwa shortly after sunrise. We made good time to Panhandle, crossed over and blithely entered the portage southbound for Pan. Turns out there was an older portage east of the current one that has grown over somewhat but not enought to seem unused. After about 40 rods we eventually figured out we were on a parallel path, maybe a couple hundred feet from the existant portage. We are single portagers still, so then had to bushwhack, fully loaded, west until we hit the real portage. This mistake is well documented if you look at the portage details on Paddle Planner, so I feel better that it hasn't just been us, but we really should have realized sooner. We wanted to be well positioned to get out early on 9/8 so we could make it back to the Twin Cities with time to spare so we pushed all the way to Lake Polly for our last night. We took the southernmost site, #2213, which would be good for a very large group as it has ample pads, though many feature spine busting roots aplenty. The put in is quite steep on the bare rock, and this was the only place we were bothered by bugs on the entire trip. Likely the wind dying down had something to do with that, but the view of the island south of the site is quite nice, and we ended up finding walleye very close by, so all in all not such a bad site. We got plenty of walleyes in the bay around the island there, casting gold husky jerks and jigging with chartreuse Berkley ripple shads on 1/8 ounce jigs in 10-15 feet of water. A nice way to put a cap on our trip.
Makwa to Polly for Walleye dinner
~Makwa Lake, Panhandle Lake, Pan Lake, Anit Lake, Kivaniva Lake, Malberg Lake, Koma Lake, Polly, Lake
We broke camp early, around 7AM, encountered the first group since Malberg on Day 1, who must have gotten up early to meet us exiting Makwa shortly after sunrise. We made good time to Panhandle, crossed over and blithely entered the portage southbound for Pan. Turns out there was an older portage east of the current one that has grown over somewhat but not enought to seem unused. After about 40 rods we eventually figured out we were on a parallel path, maybe a couple hundred feet from the existant portage. We are single portagers still, so then had to bushwhack, fully loaded, west until we hit the real portage. This mistake is well documented if you look at the portage details on Paddle Planner, so I feel better that it hasn't just been us, but we really should have realized sooner. We wanted to be well positioned to get out early on 9/8 so we could make it back to the Twin Cities with time to spare so we pushed all the way to Lake Polly for our last night. We took the southernmost site, #2213, which would be good for a very large group as it has ample pads, though many feature spine busting roots aplenty. The put in is quite steep on the bare rock, and this was the only place we were bothered by bugs on the entire trip. Likely the wind dying down had something to do with that, but the view of the island south of the site is quite nice, and we ended up finding walleye very close by, so all in all not such a bad site. We got plenty of walleyes in the bay around the island there, casting gold husky jerks and jigging with chartreuse Berkley ripple shads on 1/8 ounce jigs in 10-15 feet of water. A nice way to put a cap on our trip.
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