Just found this site today and decided I would post my very first trip report from July of '98 for anyone who might care to read it. This was my third trip to the BWCA and first since the summer of 1975...long over due for sure. We took suggestions as to where to go from Andy and Paula Hill at Hill's in Ely. Chatted over the phone a few times, they took care of all our registrations, permits, etc. Recommended that we go to Snowbank Lake, then over to Parent Lake, with final destination on Disappointment Lake. We had 6 in our party, me, my teenage son,Casey, a good friend of mine, Dennis, and his 3-teen age sons. Except for myself, it was everyone else's first trip up north. We stopped at Hill's and rented the canoes and were dropped off on Snowbank. Did some orienteering with the map and compass, loaded our three canoes and took off across the lake. Wind was at our backs and when we came around a large island, wow, the wind really hit us, we crossed that lake with 12 to 18-inch white caps while heading for the portage trail. That was a bit exciting to say the least, but thanks to heavy and well loaded canoes and having the wind behind us, we crossed it without swampping, but man...what a rush of excitement and nervousness for all of us with waves as high or higher than our gunnels!!! Then to add to the excitement, darn if we, or should I say, I...didn't get us screwed up by looking at the map wrong and missed the portage trail. What one sees while on the lake and what one "thinks" he sees while looking at the map are two different things. Not to mention how the presence of islands can really do a number on the visuals! Should have just stuck with our original compass heading and paid less attention to the map and we would have been just fine, but I second guessed myself and we got lost. We then pulled all the canoes together and had to "discuss things" a bit with everyone as to where exactly we were, then found a resort and bingo...just like Andy Hill said, there was the portage trail right next to the resort. The portage was no big deal but we all did work up a good sweat and really had to watch the trail for exposed roots and loose rocks. The sun got away from us on Parent Lake and we put into shore and made a make-shift camp. Didn't bother to set up our tents and used our kitchen tarp to sleep under...and wouldn't you know it...the clear sky at sunset turned nasty about 3:00 in the morning and it rained until sunrise. While it was raining, a few gazillion mosquitos decided they wanted out of the rain too and as uninvited as they were, decided to join us under the kitchen tarp. ..thank god for mosquito nets and sleeping bags with cinch tight hoods!! Wow, they sounded like squadrons of B-17's all night, as they grouped up infront of our mosquito nets...hungry buggers, all ticked off cause they couldn't get at us!!! By morning, things got a bit damp...but it was no big deal, actually added to the excitement of the trip...we laugh about it now..."remember that first night up there when we decided NOT to set up our tents...?!?!" Tired and wet, we broke camp at sunrise after a quick breakfast of pancakes and sausage cooked on my trusty, 25-year old, Coleman, two-burner stove. Wish everything in my life was as dependable as that old stove, was with me and my wife on my last trip to the BWCA back in 1975. We did a short canoe trip on Parent Lake and knocked off our final portage which put us on Disappointment Lake. We then canoed most of the morning on Disappointment looking for a good camp spot, but all spots were taken except the very first one we found after leaving the put-in point so headed back to that one, meanwhile, the six of us had a long, but great canoe tour on Disappointment and scouted some rock ledges and weed beds for future fishing spots. All of us were glad to finally have our base camp set up and organized so we could relax a bit. Spent 4-days there, small mouth fishing was incredible, while fishing in front of the shore line weed beds, we caught smallmouth with just about every cast, using twisters.
Saw a mamma moose and her baby swimming across infront of our campsite, that was neat. Saw eagles, heard wolves at night but never saw any, loons were everywhere, loved seeing and hearing them. Got a kick out of how the baby loons ride on their mother's backs so as not to be lunch for northern and musky. Saw otter, racoon, seagulls. No sign of bear. Camp site at Disappointment was clean as a whistle when we got there and we left it even more so. My son and I often took our 17-foot Alumacraft canoe and spent the last two hours of each day out on the water, fishing, relaxing, taking pictures of the sunsets...Casey and I will never forget the time we spent together up there in God's country...it offers all the therapy for one's emotions and soul that anyone could ever need...

Finally, our last night there, I was casting the weed beds in a secluded channel and bay north and across the lake from our campsite. It was approaching suset, I was using 6-lb line and a yellow twister and bingo...a 38-inch northern hit my line...turned our canoe 180-degrees as he ran out, did that three times before he tuckered out and let us land him in the net...all that took 15-minutes...played him really carefully on my lightweight line, most exciting fishing I had ever done, couldn't believe I landed such a monster, biggest fish I ever caught!! Estimated that it weighed in around 18 to 20-lbs. Since I really am not much of a fisherman...I had to give the majority of the credit for landing him to dumb luck. The northern had two other hooks with busted lines in his mouth so he had played that game a few times before...I just got lucky that night. As a group, we caught no walley however, just lots of small mouth and some good sized northerns. Weather on Disappointment was perfect!! Had a great trip...all of us still refer to it as "the trip of a lifetime"!! Had plenty of breeze at our campsite and the bugs were no worse there than in my back yard in Iowa, but just the same, we all really came to appreciate the Deep Woods Off, our nylon windbreakers and windpants, mosquito head net and a little campfire smoke.

Currently, this fall and winter, I am building my first cedar-woodstrip canoe...a 16-foot Navigator canoe kit I bought from Tom at Kedros Canoes in Duluth...great guy btw, highly recommend him and his canoe kits!! Plan to have it done in time to baptise it in either BWCA or Quetico in June of 2000. Will be taking yet another friend or two who have never been up north...love to introduce people to the beauty and the experience of the great north. Anxious to take suggestions as to other great places to visit up there...leaning towards Quetico this time, understand it is a bit more remote and less crowded than the BWCA and I am wanting to see some water falls and granite ridge peaks and would love to see more wildlife, moose especially!! All in all, our BWCA trip last summer was truely, "The trip of a lifetime"...loved it and highly recommend it. Andy and Paula Hill were great people to work with as outfitters and trip planners. I understand they sold their business recently...glad to have met them while they were still in the business.

Here's to calm waters...

Randy Byers
Sheldon, Iowa

Posted by Randy B on October 26, 1999 at 12:47