Our group of six is towing in to the Bottle portage on May 27 for 7 days in the Q. We are planning on heading to Argo on day one as our initial base camp.

The primary focus of the trip will be fishing, but we don't want to stay in one place all 7 days. Right now, we're planning on staying at Argo a day or two, then heading northeast to Brent and maybe even William, and then backtrack out back to Bottle Portage.

We're just going to kind of feel things out as we get up there -- if the fishing is great on Brent, maybe we stay there and never even go into William.

I'm wondering, for those of you who know this area -- would you recommend going north into Darky / Wicksteed instead? Or would you stick with Brent? Or some combination thereof? Or do something else entirely? Remember, fishing is our primary objective but seeing beautiful lakes / scenery is definitely a close second.

we stayed on argo and caught fish from our campsite. we were windbound for 3 days so lost days we would have headed north to brent. went south instead.
there are some cool pictographs on darky.

I have been to all these lakes and I’ve had the most success on Brent, it’s big and has tons of camping. We are headed to William from black robe a few days after you, the portage from darky to Brent is the worst. I literally cried the first time I did it. If it has been raining don’t even bother, most of the trail is right on the river, and if it’s up you will be waist deep with a canoe on your head for what seems like a mile. If you get to William stop and say hi, have fun

Thanks for the replies -- sounds like our plan to stick with Brent is a good one. We don't plan on portaging between Darky and Brent, but thank you for the heads-up there. If we make it up to William, we'll keep an eye out for you, Jm.

Jm5k : "I have been to all these lakes and I’ve had the most success on Brent, it’s big and has tons of camping. We are headed to William from black robe a few days after you, the portage from darky to Brent is the worst. I literally cried the first time I did it. If it has been raining don’t even bother, most of the trail is right on the river, and if it’s up you will be waist deep with a canoe on your head for what seems like a mile. If you get to William stop and say hi, have fun"

Jm5k, what dates will you be on William? We might cross paths as well. We probably won't be on William until 6/9, though.

By the way, my vote would be for Brent over Darky or Wicksteed.

We will be there 5/30-6-7, so we will miss you, we will leave you a walleye or two.

The last time we were on Brent we caught so many fish I'm certain they have all been well educated (sore mouthed), so I really don't see any point in fishing there. It would just be a waste of your time :) Have a great trip though.

Jm5k : "We will be there 5/30-6-7, so we will miss you, we will leave you a walleye or two."

Haha, much appreciated! Have an awesome trip!

Darky has always been one of our favorite fishing lakes. You can catch trout, walleye, northerns and small mouth. Couple of great camping sites as well. From there we generally take day trips into Argo for just trout. Never been to Brent or Williams.

I like Brent for overall fishing. If you go, fish the small falls where Conmee dumps into Brent. There is a great campsite on the point nearby as well. We spent a week there a few years back and never had to travel far from camp for all the trout, pike, smallmouth and walleye we wanted.

Mike R: "I like Brent for overall fishing. If you go, fish the small falls where Conmee dumps into Brent. There is a great campsite on the point nearby as well. We spent a week there a few years back and never had to travel far from camp for all the trout, pike, smallmouth and walleye we wanted."

We fished these small falls back in June of 2016 with mediocre luck. A few smallmouth but otherwise not much going on. The water flow was pretty low at that time, though. We did fairly well casting towards the shores with Zulus and topwaters for smallmouth bass around the different bays, and picked up a lake trout or two trolling around. We caught a lot of small to medium sized largemouth bass in the pond between Brent and Conmee as well, and caught a few solid walleye from 22-28" in Conmee on a day trip.