My 9 yo daughter and I entered at Bower Trout and camped on Swan during Memorial Day weekend. We had a great trip and loved the area.
IMO..... the 3 sites on Swan are much nicer than the 2 on Bower Trout and 1 on Marshall. I also thought that the 1 on Marshall was nicer than either of the 2 on Bower Trout. My impressions of the sites on those 2 lakes are just from looking at them while passing by.
The 2 things that stick in my head about portages were 1. Bower Trout to Marshall had some very muddy sections and 2. The landing on the unnamed lake side of the 40 rod portage to Swan was kind of tricky because there is a huge tree down in the lake right at the landing. There weren't any real hard portages, but with all of the short paddles and multiple times of loading and unloading the canoe it became time consuming and it took me longer to get to Swan than I anticipated.
The 3 narrow sections of Dugout Lake were tricky with lots of rocks just under the surface and at that time of year the water was moving fairly fast so it was especially difficult w/ a 9yo in the bow and paddling up the current while going towards Swan. I had to paddle hard to make it through the shoots and try to navigate around the underwater rocks. Going back downstream was much easier.
Fishing on Swan was pretty slow for us but, little duckling did catch her 1st walleye on that trip :) We didn't fish any other lakes.