Wednesday, August 12, 2015 we stayed overnight in a camper cabin at Bear Head Lake State Park. As it turns out, after taking a culinary tour of Ely, we spotted a large black bear on our drive back to the cabin.
Thursday, August 13, 2015 we drove to the parking lot at entry #23 for the start of our trip which began with Mudro Lake, Sandpit Lake, Tin Can Mike Lake, Horse Lake and up the Horse River to Lower Basswood Falls.
The traffic along the numerous portages make the entry trek slower than planned and we ended up breaking for lunch at campsite #1551 on the US side of Crooked Lake. After lunch we paddled another 6-7 miles to a small bay in between Wednesday and Thursday bays where we stayed for two nights.
Friday, August 14, 2015 the weather was warm and sunny, which wasn't necessarily the best for fishing the "big" current. For those that went fishing, we caught some keepers that were filleted, bagged and sunk deep in the bay in front of our campsite as a way to keep them fresh for dinner the next night.
Saturday, August 15, 2015 three of us decided to take provisions to paddle over to Curtain falls. Aside from the beauty of the falls, we were rewarded with a number of first-cast Northerns that hammered whatever lure we threw at them. We chose to release everything we caught given the 10 mile paddle back; plus we figured the rest of the crew would catch enough for dinner...which they eventually did.
Sunday, August 16, 2015 an overnight rain made it a bit wet to pack up camp, but we got off to a fairly early start. We were rewarded with clear skies, but it came with a significant head wind that made crossing to the south end of Thursday Bay harder than expected. From there we worked our way acroos Papoose Lake, Chippewa Lake, Niki Lake, Wagosh Lake, Gun Lake, Fairy Lake, Boot Lake. Given our direction of travel, the southwest headwind and whitecaps on Gun were quite daunting, but we powered ahead to the turn and waited to make sure the rest of crew made it safely.
Monday, August 17, 2015 we packed up camp one last time going with an easy coffee and hot oatmeal breakfast. We only had to work down Boot, through Fourtown Lake, into Mudro Lake and we were done.
