Fishing in the Boundary Waters (Red Pine and Saganaga Lake)

Posts about my trip to the Boundary Waters last month is long overdue, but I suppose better late than never!

We spent several days (4 nights, including one at the outfitter) in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) which is on the Northern coast of Minnesota and sits at the border between Canada and the United States (literally the waters at the boundary). We had a group of 6 of us, spread out into three canoes. This included my brother, my dad and three of our friends from college.

My dad (right), my brother (middle) and me (left)

This area is stunning and is largely untouched. Motor boats are only allowed in so far and canoes must be used in the regions beyond. The area itself is a large chain of connected lakes. We were taken in by the outfitter through Saganaga Lake, and from there we had a short portage into Red Pine Lake, where we ended up camping. Unless you're with an experienced group, you should use an outfitter to make sure you have everything you need before you go in. We chose Seagull Lake Outfitters and they were great (https://www.seagulloutfitters.com/).

I'll include more in future posts about the campsite, the lakes, etc, but this time I wanted to talk about fishing. My friend Joe was with us and he'd been a fishing guide in Northern Wisconsin for several years. Not being a very experienced fisherman, I relied on him a lot to determine the best technique and bait to use to catch fish up there. Plus we put a little bit of extra pressure on him, because we didn't pack a dinner for out last night and were relying solely on our ability to catch some fish to eat.

(In fairness, we had brought a bunch of potatoes and onions as a side for the fish, so worst case we could just eat that, but still...)

The first couple days we only fished a few hours and aside from a few small (sometimes very small) bass, we didn't have too much luck. Although the scenery was pretty amazing either way and we saw some cool wildlife.

Turtle sunbathing on a log. We scared it off as we got closer.

A very small bass that I caught early on...

Joe was beginning to get a feel for the lake though and where the bigger fish were hanging out. The last full day we had there (and the night of - hopefully - a fish dinner) we set out for most of the day fishing. This time we had much more luck! Joe caught several fish worthy of keeping to eat, including a nice looking bass and a walleye (the best eating of all up there!). I even caught a pretty big Northern Pike, although I can't take much credit as Joe was telling me where to cast and he unhooked my fish for me...

The other canoe came back with another Northern Pike to add to the haul. All in all, we had 2 big northerns, a walley and a bass to eat that night.

Holding up some of our catch for the day

North woods trio of fish!

Next, we had to fillet and cook the fish. We sent two of us out to another campsite to clean the fish. We did this, because we were worried about the guts from the fish attracting bears back to our campsite. After a while, they returned with a bag filled with nice looking fillets.

We cooked the fish with salt and pepper in some oil over the fire. For a side, we had the potatoes and onions that had been brought along too. Those we wrapped in tin foil with olive oil, salt and pepper and steamed over the fire.

Fish fillet cooking over the fire

All in all it made for a pretty amazing meal!

Bass and potatoes, BWCA style

We had some leftover Nacho Cheese Doritos crumbs and came up with the crazy idea to bread pieces of the fish in them and try to fry them. My dad was pretty skeptical, but these turned out to be pretty great too. They turned out like cheesy fish sticks and I'll definitely be trying that again...

Doritos breading makes for good fish!

All in all we had a pretty successful trip in terms of fishing, mostly to an experienced guide and some pretty creative campsite chefs!