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Looking at doing a last minute fall camping trip up to Vermilion. I noticed that the forest service has a few boat in sites scattered about the lake and also there a few state forest campsites on Hinsdale Island. Has anyone used any of these sites? How are the shorelines around them for pulling your boat up to?

Thanks for the help in advance!!

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Most of the campsites on Hinsdale island have decent places for boats to land (some better than others). There is a bay on the Northwest side of Smart Bay that has several campsites that are fairly well protected and have good landing sites. Good luck. Let us know how you do.

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I use these sites all the time. Usually camp on the second site from the south I believe on Hinsdale. Most sites are fairly rocky IMO, but are very usable. I use a 20' fiberglass boat for reference. Just need to be careful, and watch for rocks not only on shore, but pulling into the site as well (at least the site I use). Very easy to find the sites from the water, and all are in great shape. Fire pit, picnic table, locker for food, and latrines are on site and they are well kept. There are sites also in Muskrat Channel (between Hinsdale and the north side of Gold Island) that look nice, they are always taken though when I get there.

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Thanks for input guys, I'm looking forward to getting up there. Sounds like there are lots of good options for camping. I'll shoot out a report when I get back!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I promised a report so here it is!! So I probably picked the wrong weekend to go camping up there but we packed the right clothes so it wasn't too bad. We had our pick of the campsites since no one else was brave enough to rough it like us. We ended up going with the campsite right in the channel which was pretty nice. That brings me to a question, this site had a decent spot to beach the boat but how do most of you guys bring your boats to shore at these sites? Some of the sites I had no idea how I would get to shore.

So I wasn't too happy about the prospects of fishing following a massive cold front but it turns out it wasn't too bad. We had to work to find the fish a bit but eventually when we found them we caught plenty. Caught most of the fish not far from camp at all. Found a few wind blown points that were holding walleyes. I was kind of surprised how deep they were still, most were between 22-28 FOW. Caught everything on Lindys and rainbow chubs. We were able to bring home our limits of slot fish and even got into some nice sized fish as well, biggest being a 25".

Fall is a great time to be up at Vermilion, the colors were awesome and the fishing was solid. Seems like all the boat traffic this time of year is fisherman too so you don't have to deal with the yahoos. Thanks to everyone for the advice on the campsites, I'll probably have to make the trip up there again next fall.

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Good report. I'm glad to hear that it went well. For me, the weather is half the fun of camping outdoors. Sunny and 80 degrees never feels like I did anything unusual!

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I'll tell you what, I'll take the cool weather for sleeping at night when you're camping over those hot, humid summer nights. I think the best sleep I get is when I'm fall camping and it dips below freezing at night.

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