Green Lake is 75 feet deep, but the Minnesota DNR Lake Finder indicates that there are no gamefish within the lake.
The portage to Green Lake from Flying Lake is fairly tough; it is rocky, sometimes steep and sometimes swampy. It is also a little overgrown in spots. The portage into Green Lake if coming from Bat Lake is short and straightforward when water levels are good. If the water levels in Green Lake are low, the portage to Bat Lake gets harder as the channel leading to the portage becomes too shallow to paddle. In that case, you must take the portage extension along the channels south side. There is also an unmarked portage between Green Lake and Crag Lake. This portage is shown on older maps, but is no longer maintained. The portage is located in the southeast corner of Green Lake and goes to the inlet on the north shoreline of Crag Lake, near its eastern end. It remains passable, albeit a bit overgrown and crisscrossed with some fallen trees. The portage from Green Lake to Flying Lake is straightforward, but rather difficult, as the trail ascends and descends steeply over a ridge.
Green Lake is sandwiched betwixt the 2006 Cavity Lake Fire and the 2007 Ham Lake Fire. It completely escaped both of these fires. If you entered the BWCA from Brant Lake (Entry Point #52), this will be the first lake along that route that hasn't been affected by fire. There are still no campsites on Green Lake, so you will have to hop over the short portage to Bat Lake before you have a chance of finding one.
The waters of Green Lake flow out to the west into Bat Lake through a small creek.
There is another lake of the same name over in the western part of the BWCA near Oyster Lake.
References:
Beymer, Robert, Boundary Waters Canoe Area – Volume 2 – Eastern Region (Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2006), 147.
Pauly, Daniel, Exploring the Boundary Waters (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 323, 330, 331.
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PADDLING GREEN LAKE FROM THE FLYING LAKE PORTAGE TO THE BAT LAKE PORTAGE
Green Lake looking toward the west. The view is from the Flying Lake portage.
Green Lake is a small but deep lake, with no campsites. When you get to the west end of the lake, you enter a narrowing channel that eventually becomes a creek at the far west end of the lake. From here, you take the 25 rod portage to Bat Lake. If water levels are low, you will not be able to paddle the final stretch of this western channel and will have portage along it's south side.
From your vantage point, a channel (or creek) extends from the main part of Green Lake back behind you to your left to the Bat Lake portage. This narrow part of the lake is navigable if water levels are good. If water levels are low (like in this view), you start the portage from where you are standing to get to Bat Lake. There is a good landing here.
Green Lake from the Bat Lake portage. There is a long channel here that extends out of the western side of the lake. You can paddle up the channel to shorten the portage if the water levels are high. Otherwise you start the portage from the main lake, which you can see in the distance. The extended portage runs through that tall grass on the right side of the channel. As you can imagine, it is not a dry portage, but rather a mucky bootsucker.
