I am looking for a place to go canoe base camping for a week in aug in SE MN. I am hoping to camp away from others as much as possible and want to be on a body of water with a healthy population of smallmouth bass. I will have my 2 and half year old and my parents along with me so i am not looking for long paddles from car to camp or for any rapids but just a place to get some wild experiences not too far from home. I don't get my head up from the sewing machine much so i have no idea what opportunities there are around me.

-Tim

Chaff, huh tim?

Canoeing SE mn is dirty business.

But I digress.

I took my packraft out with a friend in a solo canoe on the Cottonwood river http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/watertrails/cottonwoodriver/index.html near new ulm a couple weekends ago and it was pretty amazing! Easy enough with some fun little rapids and had parks along the way you could camp at.

I guess it is actually south and a little west, but I had no idea a river that cool was so close.

There is also the Cannon river.

Happy paddling!

Jay

Edited by justaddfuel on 06/24/2010 17:31:23 MDT.

i don't know where stuff goes, RC is always moving posts for me cause i am clueless to where they belong.

I will check that out thanx.

Take a look at the Root River

Thanks Jim.

I have canoed the root some and didn't realize there was camping on it. I'll check it out.

-Tim

It has been a while - mid 1970's - but when I lived in Rochester we spent a great deal of time on both rivers canoeing and camping along the way. I am sure that there there may be more development along them now, but we improvised and camped with little extra company other than the cows in some areas. At this point I don't think I could tolerate the mosquitoes anymore.

thanks for all the info guys. I think this trip has transformed and I am taking the fam to a fav childhood spot for me Sylvania Wilderness area in MI's UP.

I will however check out these rivers for some bass fishing close to home!

-Tim