Paddle Planner.com - BWCA, Quetico, Sylvania, and other paddling places
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AmateurHour  
#1 Posted : Monday, July 25, 2016 10:45:57 AM(UTC)


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Checked this place out last weekend, and it's pretty good stuff. It has about 65 water-access sites scattered over 15,000 acres, so it's roughly the size of Sylvania. Motors are allowed throughout, but there's a "voluntary quiet zone" in the eastern 1/5 of the area.

Paddling in the chunk that we checked out was easy. It's a flowage, so our neck of the woods was generally shallow, weedy, and sheltered. Overall traffic felt very similar to Sylvania in that someone was usually around or recently through. Etiquette by motor boats was generally pretty decent; sometimes they'd volunteer to go slow and quiet in the voluntary quiet zone and sometimes not so much.

Walleye, smallmouth, and muskies are supposed to be great up there. I caught about the chunkiest 15" smallie that I've ever boated, and apparently that's pretty common. My preferred method is to cover a lot of water while paddle trolling Raps and spoons, but that didn't work too well in the shallow, weedy bays. Anyone visiting should bring a diversity of tackle for both the deep holes and the thick salad.

Sites were not too hard to find. It was peak season, but we passed three good spots before encountering an occupied campsite. Leave no trace seems like a foreign concept, but nothing was worse than anything I've seen in the BWCA. It's still a nicer, quieter experience than anything else in the area.

Overall: Four stars out of five, will go again

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Gavia  
#2 Posted : Monday, August 1, 2016 9:35:16 PM(UTC)


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Agreed on all points! I've been there a few times (including 9/11/01) and hope to get back again this year. Much bigger water than Sylvania but without the variety of possible day trips, and no hiking trails except for Big Island, which is pretty overgrown.
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