Hi all.

I have been in at French Lake many times for short trips. Spent quite a few nights in the east end of Pickerel Lake. Have also been through Nym to Batch a couple of times, once to Sue Falls through Lerome, and once down Baptism Creek.

My wife finally started joining me on a few of these trips. She has some mobility issues so we need to keep portages to the bare minimum and try to keep the canoe time to a reasonable level to make it more enjoyable for us both.

She has spent some time with me in east Pickerel, the Dawson Trail campground, and even was able to make it into Nym/Batch last year. That was a great weekend.

We have been looking for an alternative to try a different area so we have decided to do an entry at Stanton Bay and spend a little time in the west end of Pickerel. The plan is to spend the first night at the Dawson Trail campground, leave the car at the French Lake parking lot, take a shuttle to the Stanton entry the next morning, spend two nights in the west or southwest part of Pickerel, one night back towards the east end of Pickerel (The Pines area), and then exit the next day at French Lake where hopefully our car and a hot shower will both be waiting. lol

Since I have never been in through Stanton or spent any time at all in the west end of Pickerel, I am just wondering if anyone has any helpful info they might share to make that short amount of time a bit more enjoyable.

Any special sites to see (might go see the dam), nice camp spots, etc.?

As far as advice on any good fishing areas, we will be doing this in early August this summer. My wife loves fishing and we usually do alright with smallies and pike, but have never had much luck finding walleye. I do have an old portable Eagle depth/fish finder that I was considering trying to bring along. Just not sure I want to go through the trouble of getting it up and running, then hauling it around with us.

Thanks in advance.

Are you using an outfitter for the shuttle? If you are, the outfitter can probably provide advice on campsites and fishing. What time of the year are you going?

we have been looking into who is willing to provide a shuttle as we have all our own gear.

seine river has just recently given us a cost and we are considering that as an option. i am sure if we end up using them for that, they could offer some useful info. but thats a long way off.

we will be staying at dawson in a few weeks so we are planning on taking some time to explore the stanton bay road and decide whether or not i am willing to take my vehicle in there. if i am, we may change the plan and do an entry and exit at stanton. if not, we will use seine river to take us in and exit at french lake as originally planned.

we are planning on going in early august.