THE NAMEKAGON..
My buddy Mike and had an interesting spring trip down the Namekagon last spring. The highlights of this trip were great weather, closeup looks at Bald Eagles, and an unfortunate encounter with a beer swilling bruin.
We put in upstream of Trego for a two day paddle. We found a pleasant campground halfway to our takeout and set up camp. That night there was a short but powerful rainstorm. A black bear, undoubtedly hungry after a long winter's layoff, managed to ravage our cooler and make off with our food pack, which was hung in a tree, but evidently not high enough.
Bears in Wisconsin are usually pretty timid, since they are not protected, and in fact are hunted. This one must have been pretty hungry, and maybe a little tipsy after the two beers he drank out of our cooler. Later in the summer Mike led a trip of summer camp kids down this river and was told by a park ranger that bears were never a problem in this are. Mike begged to differ.
Another highlight of this trip was how close the numerous bald eagles we sighted allowed us to come to them. They allowed us to float by them as the rested on treetops by the river without flying off, which is usually the case.
This stretch of river has some easy rapids but nothing to be concerned about. Some locals were fishing the easy rapids at our campground and said that they usually caught plenty of walleyes in this river. We didn't fish much, but I imagine that the fishing is pretty good.
Farther downstream, you can put in on the "Nam", paddle to the mouth of the Totagatic, paddle upstream if you like and then paddle down into the St. Croix, all in one day. This stretch has a few riffles but plenty of nice campsites.
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