Ok seasoned travelers,

I might be taking one or two people to Quetico that have never been to the BWCA or the Q. This would primarily be a basecamp trip and requires few portages due to physical limitations of the newbies.

If my priorities are:
1. Quality of fishing for walleye and smallies
2. Easy to moderate day trip locations
3. Smaller crowds
4. Scenery

Would you choose a trip to Pickerel starting at French Lake or North Bay via Prairie Portage (maybe even a tow to Basswood)?

Both options are big waters. If they are new to paddling, you might want to put them on smaller lakes.

been to both places and i'd LOVE to return to french lake into Pickerel.
yes, it was windy but you can have wind on any lake. saw only 4 people in 5 days and they were windbound on pickerel same as us for a few hours. the little lakes off to the south (bisk, beg, bug) are quaint, portages not difficult. i can't speak to the fishing other than there was at least 1 fish cuz i broke my rod trying to catch it.

french lake is lovely, grassy; the pickerel river is winding and we saw a nice bull moose, a bunch of turtles and a mink, then there is the sandy beach area and what is called The Pines.

i've heard north bay and bayley bay can be very nasty but both those lakes were glass when we paddled them. we did really like burke and isabella and side lake area... but we saw more people, too.

A problem with using North Bay as a base camp is that the the Quetico personnel don't want people using that location for that purpose. I know this from conversations with the PP rangers. They want campers to get to the lake or river bearing the name of the entry point. I expect, however, that the rangers don't kid themselves that no one base camps on North Bay!

Regarding Mocha's comment, my personal experience on several occasions is that Bayley Bay and North Bay can be rough when the wind picks up.

The Man Chain is very nice and easy to reach. You could use the Carp entry point from Prairie Portage and not have many portages. Carp itself is ok; people base camp there and you will share it with many people.

When you planning to go?

When? Wish it was tomorrow. Nothing definite yet but likely a mid-June to early July timeframe.

quote Ausable: "A problem with using North Bay as a base camp is that the the Quetico personnel don't want people using that location for that purpose. I know this from conversations with the PP rangers. They want campers to get to the lake or river bearing the name of the entry point. I expect, however, that the rangers don't kid themselves that no one base camps on North Bay!

Regarding Mocha's comment, my personal experience on several occasions is that Bayley Bay and North Bay can be rough when the wind picks up.

The Man Chain is very nice and easy to reach. You could use the Carp entry point from Prairie Portage and not have many portages. Carp itself is ok; people base camp there and you will share it with many people.

"

Interesting because I got a different story from rangers at PP. The one trip my wife went and I wanted to base camp on North Bay. Had a Sarah permit but explained that when checking in and they said i should have a "Agnes Base camp permit" and changed it right there since several were available. I guess no different than US rangers in that they are not all on the same page. I had asked the park superintendent a question at Canoecopia several years ago and he said sure, but the ranger at PP said no and even said he would not allow it even if the superintendent had said it was OK. Go figure.

quote billconner: "wanted to base camp on North Bay. Had a Sarah permit but explained that when checking in and they said i should have a "Agnes Base camp permit" and changed it right there since several were available. I guess no different than US rangers in that they are not all on the same page. I had asked the park superintendent a question at Canoecopia several years ago and he said sure, but the ranger at PP said no and even said he would not allow it even if the superintendent had said it was OK. Go figure. "

The PP rangers can be accommodating. It makes sense that they would want to change your permit because there are so many available per day for Agnes compared to those for Sarah (7 vs 2). Since North Bay is closer to Agnes than Sarah, their statistical analysis of campers – assuming that they do an analysis – would be a bit closer to reality. The one time I base camped on North Bay I also had an Agnes permit. My original plan was to pass through Agnes, but by the time of the trip, my sole remaining partner was pretty badly hobbled by knee and hip issues so that there was no way that we were going to get as far as Agnes.

I took 3 newbies for a basecamp in North Bay the first week of August. The wind was up the day we went in and had a rough ride across Bayley Bay but with all the gear weighing down the boats we were ok.

The tougher part was once on North Bay at 2:00 and we needed a site. We fought some big broadside waves around the left (west) side of the big island and luckily the site on the north end was open. If it wasn't we would have been in trouble.

We spent 6 nights on two different camps there. We spent our last 3 nights on Sunday Lake before heading out. North Bay is big water but if you like to fish it's pretty decent. I would camp at the north east corner. Nice sites there. Day trip into Lost Bay too.