BWCA May 2013



Mark and I decided to do a spring Boundary Waters trip this year.  We'd been doing winter trips for awhile and hadn't found time for a May trip in several years.  We picked a route we'd never done: West Bearskin/Duncan/Rose/Clearwater.  I've heard a lot of great things about those lakes and was looking forward to charting new territory.  It was a very late spring though, and we were anxiously watching the ice out news and webcams up the Gunflint.  Things looked pretty good on Hungry Jack, so we figured we'd be good to go with our route.  We stopped by the ranger station in Grand Marais Thursday morning to pick up our permit, and the ranger said - as she placed her hand squarely on our intended area of operations - "I hope you're not planning to go here."  Hmmm.  We pulled our permit anyway and decided to give it a shot.  As we pulled into the put-in point on West Bearskin, it was immediately evident that we would have to make a change in plans.



Four inches of ice on West Bearskin

 We checked out the end of our loop, Clearwater, and it was much the same.  There was a little open water along the shoreline, and we briefly considered working our way up to the nearest campsite and waiting the ice out.  We were itching to get out there, but we decided to back track and head to the other side of the Trail for Bat Lake (Good Call #1).

There are several, mostly short portages into Bat, and we made camp by late afternoon.  The nicest site on the lake was inexplicably the only one open.  Things were looking up!

Setting up the rods on Bat lake

We set up camp and enjoyed a day and a half of nice weather.  The fishing wasn't great, but we had a nice fish dinner on Friday.  The lakers were still schooled in 40-70 feet of water in the deep 100-foot hole on the NE corner of the lake.  We tried jigging for awhile, but it was hard to keep the canoe steady.

Twisting up some chow

See kids - even the dads have to make water when you're not around!

Little Money comes through again!

 

Mark managed to catch a water shoe off the north campsite.

 We headed over to Gillis on Friday morning to see what we could do there.  There were still huge floes of dark ice on the lake, and we were only able to fish the back bay.  It was a lot thicker than it looked, and our attempt to break through only rode us up on the floe, nearly tipping us.  The guys in the neighboring campsite went over in the afternoon and reported that it was 60-80% clear. 

 

 It started raining Saturday morning, and didn't let up all day.  It wasn't a hard rain.  We fished for awhile, picking up a couple, but it appeared that we'd be hunkered down all afternoon and be packing up wet gear in the morning for the slog out.  With Mark having to drive home to Chicago the next day, we decided to pack up during a mid-afternoon lull and head out early (Good Call #2).  It rained on us the entire way out, and we crossed paths with my brother Pete and his son Matthew on their way in.

 

Nice laker in the rain

 We stopped by the Trail Center for some burgers and beer, and had the best seat in the house at the bar (Good Call #3).  Crashed at Pete's cabin and called it a trip!  Great to get out there again in May.