I developed a new appreciation for the Narrows on my last trip. The water was a little low so I settled on a different route than I'd planned and discovered a nice little out of the way and rather well protected island site I never knew existed. I normally just blow through that area because on my first (or second?) trip, we spent our entire second week in the Narrows and I returned to poke around and get to know it once or twice early on.

There are some interesting areas in there I've almost forgotten. That glacier scraped granite w/ quartz, what, intrusions, some great long vistas, shallow weedy areas and the magic rock! (A humongus erratic split in two you can walk into.) The nice thing is that, for staying on Pickerel, you're really never wind-bound like you could be in most other areas.

Stanton Bay is always pretty good fishing. I'm not sure why. The larger body of Pickerel is often hit and miss besides the usual laker hangouts.

If it's a first trip for him, just the portages between your put-in and take-out would give a 9 yr old a fair taste. I wouldn't take a kid down to Bud and back and then out Nym in 5 days. Rawn, maybe, if he likes to paddle. The fishing is more predictable on smaller lakes. Less places to hide??   Think of the narrows as a smaller lake.

Spend at least one night on the big lake though. If you hit it right, dusk or dawn can be a truly unforgettable sight he may not soon forget.

Ya know I'm just not a huge fan of the Narrows. I've stayed at three different sites on the narrows and most of them have been pretty mediocre. And when I look back at my map since I'm traveling w/o GPS, I'm not even 100% sure I can pinpoint the actual sites that I've been at. I'm pretty darn good at map and compass navigation but the Pickerel Narrows just seem to give me fits. I feel like I have to look at my map every two minutes and until I spot some of the key landmarks that I know, I'm just never 100% comfortable. This past summer we got pushed into the upper part of the narrows and thankfully I realized this before we ended up heading towards a dead end.

I'm not a fisherman so its possible that I'm chastising one of the great parts of Quetico without knowing it. But I guess if I were giving input I'd recommend some of the Pickerel sites and then padding the Narrows to some of the sites just into Batch. Bay or the far western area of the Narrows.

I think my feelings on the Narrows are a result of mediocre (not bad) experiences there. For some reason the weather also tends to be crap when I'm at this part of the park, too.

NW:
Why skip camping in Pickerel Narrows?  (Other than the fact that I mismarked that one campsite - I hope to do some recon and fix that this year.)  But I was thinking about camping/fishing that area - thoughts?

Thanks -Tom

I strongly recommend the B-Chain as well. The portages have challenges but are not excessively difficult. The dam from Pickerel to Bisk is a cool spot for a stop and there are some neat waterfalls (not huge). I do recommend being exceedingly careful in the rapids that flow into Fern Lake as the youth group I led this summer damaged a canoe pretty well there.

For reference sake, we did Stanton down to Fern and camped on Fern the first night. We then backtracked and made it through a good stretch of the Pickerel Narrows for night two. We made it to the Nym Lake put-in by about 2pm on day 3. Wind was not much of a factor and the youth group I was leading was older (15-years old) however their canoeing skills were not exceptional.

I don't think you want to take on the portage to Olifaunt so I'd probably backtrack. If you do want that challenge, you could head up through Deux Rivieres. This would mean a few challenging portages as well as dealing with water levels.

If you want to base camp and take things slowly, head down to the B-chain into Fern than backtrack. There are some good sites on Pickerel, too. Skip camping on the Pickerel Narrows if possible. Feel free to send a message and I'd be happy to pass along more specific info.

Now if you could get down to Russell, he'd probably really enjoy that, but that would be pushing things.

We never spent a lot of time fishing Pickerel but I hear good things about it. It seems the time we did fish it we never done real good. That could have a lot to do with weather conditions too. Thanks for the input.

Quote:


For variety & short portages, The B-chain is a good suggestion as long as you go only as far as Fern & then backtrack - an option I'm looking at doing with my kids this year also.  If you keep going the Fern-Oliphaunt portage is tough, but doable & then you probably need to loop back to Pickerel via Deux Rivieres to Dore which can be impassable when water is low.

I've found that kids do portages pretty well, maybe better than me since they aren't carrying as much load.  That said, if you want to avoid portages there's lots to explore between Stanton & Nym with little portaging.  You could spend the whole time on Pickerel without paddling the whole thing, esp if you spend any of the time fishing/ swimming/ exploring.
-Tom

Thanks for the info I'll look into doing a trip that way.

Higgy,

You might head south from Stanton and hit the B-chain. He might like to check out the waterfalls between the B lakes, and the portages are short. Plus the B lakes are small, and likely to be calm if he wants to try his hand at some paddling. Pickerel will have the best beaches for swimming. Maybe have him bring a snorkel and mask for swimming?

Have fun and welcome to QJ!

Ranger

Buckingham is easy to get in and out of.

We are looking at staying 5 days, at least that is what he says he wants to do. He loves exploring and swimming above fishing. However, when he is catching a lot of fish he becomes more interested. We are not wanting to do any long or hard portages. We would like to see some new areas are not familiar with other lakes.