7/5/25 – Jeremy Carl recently returned from the Lady Chain/Louse River loop and was kind enough to pass on his trip report along with some great pictures. -Jessica

“Thursday 6/26.

We left Hastings, MN around 5am. We made it to Fish Lake Bait in Harris, MN about 6am when they were just opening for the day. We arrived at Sawbill Outfitters around 10am.   We were on the water by 11:30am.  We made it to Grace Lake in about 3 hours, the Western most campsite on the lake. It was a decent site, not bad at all. We had no luck with Walleye on Grace.  The portage from Beth to Grace is no joke, but at least it was a easy path to follow, More to come on this later….

Friday 6/27, Saturday 6/28

We packed up camp and made it over to Phoebe Lake, this was one of our favorites on the trip. We stayed two nights. It was about an hour and half to move over from Grace, we took our time and checked out the lake. It truly might be one of my favorite lakes I’ve camped on in the BW.   The other canoe saw a Momma Bear and a couple of cubs on the distant western shoreline. We stayed on the Eastern most island site, it was a very nice site. We caught a few Walleye right from camp. We also had a snapping turtle experience in front of our site, he was going for the stringer, we got the fish away just in time. We caught about 15 walleye total on Phoebe, all around 18-20 inches. Super nice looking fish!  We also caught some Smallies and Pike.

Sunday 6/29

We moved over to Lake Polly, we had the site accross from the portage towards Koma in the NW corner of the lake.  I think it took us about 3.5 hours, we double portage. This was a nice site. We swam right from camp. We caught a few perch but we didn’t keep anything.

Side note, we watched two guys catch a few walleye in the rapids on Hazel Lake by the portage from Phoebe River.

Monday 6/30

We moved to Malberg Lake, it took about an hour and half to get to the site in the first channel that heads West right after a quick paddle up from the massive rock at the end of the Koma to Malberg portage, I love that rock. I was in this area back in 2020.  The site we had was awesome!  Both this site and the site we had on Polly get tons of use, it’s easy to tell. I bet they are used most nights of the summer months. We went down by the big rock and caught about 12-15 more Walleye. We ate Walleye three times on this trip. These fish were more in the 15-18 range. Still beautiful!  We also caught about a 25 inch Pike and an 17 inch Smallie down by the rock.  It poured rain for about 20-30 min while we were fishing.

Side note, there is a giant White Pine on either the second or third portage between Polly and Koma, I can’t recall which. It might be one of the biggest I’ve ever seen.  It’s just off the portage on the East side of the trail about 2/3 the way towards Koma.

Tuesday 7/1

Well today the wild and crazy part of the route started and it did not disappoint!  We made it to the South site on Trail Lake, it was about 4 hours.  Boze lake was a nice looking lake, the site there isn’t bad and would work for a smaller group. Then there is the portage from Boze into the Louse River. It’s very easy to tell this used to be two seperate portages with a short paddle in the middle that is now about 190 rods of pure type 2 kind of fun, the kind that is fun once you’re done or when you look back at it later. The middle 70 rods or so is very new, we had a very tough time following the trail, also this section has lots of knee deep mud sucking holes that are unavoidable. We were a mess when we finished it but we made it!  I would love to be right back there right now!  The other portages this day were tougher and overgrown but not too bad.

We caught one Walleye and about a half dozen nice Northern Pike on Trail Lake. The campsites are both smaller but usable for sure. We went swimming here as well, it was needed to cleanup the mud from the day and felt amazing!

Wednesday 7/2

We made it to the southern most campsite on Wine lake by the portage to Frederick Lake in about 5 hours, the site has really nice White Pines right in camp. This was a super tough day, there is no way to sugar coat it!  The first portage out of trail lake is 125 rods and about half way there is a crazy canyon crossing over some moving water, not sure how this would even be crossable in high water, it was cool to see!  Now these next two portages were absolutely nuts, the first one about 50 rods but not exactly sure because the Beaver Dam blew out some time ago and a new portage was made. It’s way longer than 50 rods and over some rough terrain! The overgrowth on this portage and the next one that’s 125 rods is so thick you can’t even barely see the trail or your feet, there are also a few boulder fields to traverse, and of course more mud but not as bad as the previous day. I’m not sure how we found our way through these. We made some wrongs turns but there was always a faint trail to follow. I’m pretty sure nobody has been through the Louse River in some time. There were no signs of human footprints, no grass knocked down, no sign of anything but all natural!  At one point I started singing the Lion King song, it felt like the jungle!  The next 135 rod portage climbs a big hill and is also overgrown in most areas but much easier to follow. These 3 portages back to back to back are no doubt the toughest 3 in a row I’ve ever experienced. More type 2 stuff, they are not for the faint at heart.  The portage from Mug to Wine is a decent climb but it felt good to be back on a normal portage, I think we saw a Dolmen on this one?! 

Thursday 7/3

Wine Lake is a Gem!  We caught 5 Lake Trout total with each of us getting at least one, they ranged from 21-26 inches. That also meant that all 4 of us caught the BW Grandslam!  Then, to top things off, we had a faint showing from the northern lights on Wine Lake as well. I feel like I need to come back to Wine Lake someday, the Eastern most bay is absolutely gorgeous!

We paddled back to Sawbill in roughly 4.5 hours with a stop on Zenith to check out the plane laying on the shore. The Zenith/Lugenida portage is not the worst portage we experienced on this trip, it was long but we actually 1.5 carried this and it wasn’t terrible, just long!  There was always a path to follow.

We seen Bears, Otters, Mink, Lynx, Beavers, Snapping Turtle, Painter Turtles, Loons, Merganzers, Blue Wing Teal, Mallards, Golden Eyes, Swans, and Gardner Snakes.

We caught Walleye, Smallies, Northern Pike, Lake Trout, Blue Gill, and Perch.

It was hot at times, it was cold at times, it got windy but always manageable, it rained but never thunderstormed.  We fished through a terrenntial down pour on Malberg. Overall the weather was perfect.

Bugs were bad from 9:30-10:30 pm.

We had a fire all 7 nights

In the end to sum things up…it was an absolutely amazing route, and more than amazing experience. I don’t think I can express how much we enjoyed every bit of it!  I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a challenging route with great fishing, plenty of solitude, and a wide variety of terrain.  Or anyone that enjoys the type 2 fun I’ve mentioned, this route is perfect!

Roughly 60-70 miles with double portaging and fishing, hard to be exact. 36 portages.”