Windmill and North Windmill (Seep Lakes)


The Seep Lakes has been our first camping trip each season for the past eight years or so. This year, like most, we had great weather (though the nights were brisk) and fairly good fishing. I recommend getting there the week before spring break.. Unfortunately, this area has become a haven for teenagers who spend a week playing music VERY LOUD and strewing garbage.
We camped on a bluff overlooking Windmill Lake, named because of the windmill you will find still standing in 37 feet of water. Watch your prop because it's just about a foot or so below the surface in the middle of the lake, midway from the shallow cove to the east end of the lake. It's worth spending a little time looking for on a clear day when the fishing slows down.
I took my two daughters, 11 and 12, and two of their girlfriends.
Saturday afternoon when we arrived and set up our camp, Merrill, Katy and I paddled up Windmill to the short, steep portage to North Windmill. This is one of my favorite places on earth. Its a small hike-in only lake with great fishing. You might put a scratch or two in your canoe getting there but its worth it. Once you carry your canoe to the top of the trail it just takes a few minutes to push, pull or plow it through the small bunch of reeds into clear water. Alternatively, you can drag it in from the parking area as my son and I did one year.
About a third of the lake is too shallow to be productive. But the deeper, southern half holds plenty of rainbows. I paddled while the girls trolled Rapalas. They each had caught four fish within an hour or so. Unfortunately, they were all small, 9-11 inches, and we released them.
I left the canoe pulled into the reeds and came back at first light on Sunday. Fish were surfacing all over the lake. I trolled a large frog-pattern F-7 Flatfish. Within thirty minutes I had hooked and lost three good fish. This is unusual for me and I've got to chalk it up to a new rod that I was trying out that day for the first time. It has a very soft action and by the time I had dropped the paddle to grab the rod, they were gone. I switched rods but by that time things had quieted down. Merrill showed up about eight am and we went back to my standby, small silver and black Rapalas. We caught and released another four rainbows in the next half hour, all small. Not to give you the wrong idea, there are lots of big fish in that lake, we just weren't catching them that morning.
We portaged back down to Windmill and I promptly caught what was the last fish of the morning, a very nice, plump fourteen incher. After releasing it, the wind came up and we went ashore to spend time in other endeavors; kite flying and frog catching (and napping, in my case).
Just at dusk, the wind died and the lake was ALIVE with fish surfacing. I 'd four in the last hour before it was too dark to see well enough to unhook a fish, all on the silver and black floating rapala. A gorgeous, beefy fifteen-incher, a fourteen and two thirteen's. The next morning, I 'd three more by eight am. One fourteen and two thirteen inchers. Unfortunately, it was time to pack up and head for home. All in all, a pretty successful trip. Maybe when you get there those rainbows will have grown a little bit more.

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