# Multi-day canoe trips recommendations?



## seneca

Hey all,

This is my very first post.

I'd like to do a 3-4 day canoe/camping/fly-fishing trip in early August with a couple of buddies. We all have canoe experience, but it's been a handful of years since any of us has been on a multiday trip.

We'd like to stay within a 4-6 hour drive or so of Detroit, and we'd like to get some "wilderness" feel. We are all backcountry backpackers and mountaineers, so the more remote the better.

Also, I'd like to get some fly-fishing in, even if it's just during afternoon breaks and post dinner.

Last criteria would be good, semi-forested, camp sites without too many restrictions on where we can camp.

So a few questions for you all:

1) What's the best location for us? I was thinking AuSable. But, I'll take any recommendations at all.

2) Any general tips on canoe camping? Anything that we might forget about that we should keep in mind.

Thanks in advance for tips! Cheers!


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## swampbuck

Ausable, grayling to oscoda. Manistee from grayling to manistee.

I think those are the only options, unless you go to the up.

Both have public land along the river. You can camp on state owned public land for free.


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## Invictus

http://www.chippewalanding.com/

I've used this place several times in the past. It has multiple areas where you can camp along the river usually with cut firewood already in the area. Easy to moderate as far as difficulty level. Great fun.


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## knu2xs

As was mentioned, the AuSable or Big Manistee are basically your two choices, based on your criteria. 

One year, my wife, youngest son & I took a "multi-day" canoe trip here in Michigan, only we did six different rivers in six days.......

If I remember correctly, they were the AuSable, Big Manistee, Sturgeon, Thunder Bay, Muskegon (upper) & Pine (near Wellston), not in that order.


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## UplandnWaterfowl

There is another option, the Rifle River, 60 miles, good fishing, lots of places to camp, etc, etc. See this youtube video, if I remember right this was a 4 day trip.


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## Invictus

seneca said:


> 2) Any general tips on canoe camping? Anything that we might forget about that we should keep in mind.


 Two things I can say right off the top of my head and will be the two things that will keep your trip a pleasurable one instead of a miserable one is 1)making sure all gear is sealed tightly so that it remains dry and 2)mosquito/fly/tick repellant in abundance. A third one would definitely be to make sure you have firewood either available at the campsite or a way of taking some with you. The first time my wife and I did an overnighter we struck out on all 3 and it was a trip that still makes her cringe when she thinks about it. But it's also the most memorable one for those exact reasons:lol:


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## brushbuster

The U.P! The 2 hearted, the indian, the carp and the fox are close to your 6 hr travel limit. All are remote rugged and excellent rivers but they require portaging. Good fishing with fly tackle in all of them.
If your looking for rugged wilderness and dont mind a little work,you'll be all by your lonesome in most stretches of any of these rivers.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## knu2xs

If paddling the Rifle I would recommend checking water levels first, especially if paddling a canoe loaded with the extra weight of camping gear.

At lower water levels you may have to do a little wading through some of the shallower sections and during the summer you may have to deal with lots of other paddlers, much like the AuSable, even during weekdays. While I have paddled both the Rifle & AuSable many times they tend to be my least favorites due to all of the, as they call them in the Ozarks, "river dorks." Because of this I have generally paddled those rivers during the "off season." 

For consistent, decent water depths, with far fewer paddlers, the best option would be the big Manistee. You always have plenty of water, except for the uppermost section near Cameron Bridge where the river is more like a creek than the river most of us know. This "creek-like" section doesn't extend that far down from Cameron so if one puts in there it doesn't take long to get into good paddling water with more of a UP vibe to the surrounding woods.


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## -Axiom-

The upper Manistee.

You can start at M-72 & end at US-131, you can make that into 3-4 days easy, with some of the best trout fishing in Michigan.


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## seneca

Yeah. I'm a bit worried about river dorks. My buddies and I have all spent a lot of time in really pristine wilderness and I want to show how awesome Michigan can be.... River dorks might make good eatin', but otherwise hoping to avoid them .


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## knu2xs

Invictus said:


> 1)making sure all gear is sealed tightly so that it remains dry


One thing to add to the above, lash everything to the canoe, especially the spare paddle. 
I rely on "bungee balls" for most of this duty.

Even though I have paddled well over 1,000 hr's since I last dumped, each & every time I secure 
everything inside the canoe as if I / we were gonna tip over, even on the slowest of rivers.

I like to tell people that there are two type of paddlers, 
"Those who have tipped over, and those who will..........

Stuff happens, no matter how hard we try to keep "The open side up."


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## brushbuster

If you decide to do a wilderness float in the U.P pack lightly.
Keep everything to one pack each if possible. 

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## Boardman Brookies

-Axiom- said:


> The upper Manistee.
> 
> You can start at M-72 & end at US-131, you can make that into 3-4 days easy, with some of the best trout fishing in Michigan.


This would be the place I would go. You could even extend this below 131 to Baxter Br or Harvey Br.


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## brushbuster

-Axiom- said:


> The upper Manistee.
> 
> You can start at M-72 & end at US-131, you can make that into 3-4 days easy, with some of the best trout fishing in Michigan.


I would start up at cameron bridge though. Its beautiful water up there.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## salmonslammer

brushbuster said:


> If you decide to do a wilderness float in the U.P pack lightly.
> Keep everything to one pack each if possible.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-S720C using Ohub Campfire mobile app


Lord yes... Did the 2 hearted and had some brutal portages on the upper reaches. I was solo too.

The further N you can go.. the less people you will see on the river... Weekdays are way better than weekends. Did the 
manistee last fall up and down from chippewa landing... Nice float...

Might head up next week... Got pimped on the fishing last year... (High water)

Sent from my HTCONE using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## seneca

Thanks for all the great advice guys. Also getting ready to build my first fly rod. Getting pumped.


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## seneca

Just checking in. The trip ended yesterday morning.

Our route took us from Cameron Bridge to Yellow Tree Landing, above CCC bridge.

The three of us got into the river Saturday morning and got out on Monday morning. We were delayed on Sunday by a serious rain/lightning storm that we rode out under my hammock tarp.

A little context for my review of the trip. I am an backcountry camper and primitive skills hobbiest. I have done multiday trips - both ultralight and primitive - into some of the most remote wilderness locations in the country and I was hoping to recapture SOME of that feeling in the lower peninsula. I've got to say, except in very select sections of the river (mostly low buggy land), that target was tough to hit.

The Manistee river itself (like most of Michigan) is beautiful and diverse. You'll find excellent opportunities for viewing birds and mammals, fishing, hunting, camping, and taking in some of the most inspiring natural scenery available in North America (if on less of a "grand" scale than the west).

However, add in the Michigan river summer crowd, and it sometimes felt more like visiting a theme park than spending time paddling one of Michigan's natural wonders. To me, this is a tragedy.

The section below Cameron is about 50% lined with houses packed one after the other along banks (on the southern end) - Michigan's proverbial "American Dream", the all-important "cottage up north". The other 50% is naturally stunning, but don't go there on a Saturday in early August unless your "thing" is drunk ******** pissing in the water and narrating it for you in real time as you float by. If you don't go in for that, you may be lucky enough to get a fat man in an inner tube watching a Tigers game on a TV in a second inner tube.

For all the negativity in that last paragraph, I did see some river parties that I seriously considered crashing - mostly 3-4 families in canoes with kids and lots of beer.

Shel-Haven canoe rental reports upwards of 600 people per Saturday in the summer floating that section in Shel-Haven boats. Just to give you an idea.

Below the M-72 bridge things get really nice, but again, most of the land has only been spared because it's low and swampy - apparently not productive enough for growing crops, houses, or factories.

We camped on Saturday night soon after the bridge on what looked like public land and had a great night together in a high meadow under the stars. (And I continue to love hanging in my Eno hammock.)

But, even this location was too close to a road for comfort. Loud voices, country music, and gunshots starting at 10 am told us that the weekend wasn't over and that we weren't as "out in the sticks" as we thought when we tied up our boats just before sunset the night before.

The next day, "civilization" continued to thin out. Highlights included a rope swing in a remote and low-lying cedar forest, a beautiful stand of large white pines and a great place to eat lunch/ride out the storm, some spectacular scenery with sun, mist, and rain drops like diamonds on pine needles. And we found a very nice place to camp near Yellow Tree Landing (I'm about 90% sure this was private land).

That night, we enjoyed a still night, lit by a waxing quarter moon. Our fire was small and we sipped a bottle of Bulleit Rye whiskey as we laughed and talked about times past, the challenges and gifts that life is bringing us, and times yet to come.

The next morning, Shel-Haven picked us up and the trip wrapped up.

All in all, it was a great time with great friends. I felt like I got my nature fix. Since I'm more from the (Aldo) Leopold school of reverence for the land and its resources than I am from the (Lynyrd) Skynyrd school, I also came away with some deeper sociological questions.

I hold high hopes for a more enlightened style of human participation with nature. I see no reason why Michigan as a state can't make it a goal to become a national trend-setter in this respect. Our land is diverse, beautiful, and fertile. We all love the land we call home. And we have incredible access to land in the lakes, National Forests, and parks.

Environmentally, the resources are there for us to become a global leader in both sustainable/restorative resource management and ecological literacy.

Culturally, I'm afraid that we still have a ways to go.


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## Boardman Brookies

Unfortunatly on any given weekend with temps in the 70-80s all of the rivers that are capable of floating tubes will be full of drunken idiots. It does suck. From what I hear/read they are really trying to crack down on this on the Muskegon. Paddlers have ever right to the river as do anglers but there needs more enforcement of the public intoxication. People have died. This is serious.


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## seneca

Boardman Brookies said:


> Unfortunatly on any given weekend with temps in the 70-80s all of the rivers that are capable of floating tubes will be full of drunken idiots. It does suck. From what I hear/read they are really trying to crack down on this on the Muskegon. Paddlers have ever right to the river as do anglers but there needs more enforcement of the public intoxication. People have died. This is serious.


Yeah. I was actually VERY reluctant to paddle the Manistee because of my experience with paddlers (while I was fly fishing) in the past.

This trip showed me that ALL paddlers aren't a problem and that there is a way of interacting that can at least minimize disturbance. So I felt good about that.

The issue is larger than that. It's a combo of both public education and policy. Fishermen and paddlers definitely both have a right to be on the river and (I believe) can peacefully coexist. The big issue is drunkenness and whatever underlies a basically destructive lifestyle.


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## brushbuster

Next time take the trip to the up and try the upper 2 hearted. All the rugged wilderness you can handle!


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## seneca

Thanks brush. Will keep that in mind. Cheers!


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## Gearhead

seneca-

If you haven't already, I highly recommend a canoe trip in the BWCA or Quetico. Both are semi-remote or at least feel that way. My last trip was a 6 day solo adventure.....nothing like hearing wolves howl nearby in the middle of the night when you're alone in your tent !!

Had one trip where a bear got into our food pack, that was interesting.

-Scott


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## seneca

Scott,

Thanks a ton for the recommendation! I haven't done either of those trips, but BWCA has been on my short list for a while.

Cheers!


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