Folly Lake Fishing in Nipissing District, Ontario

• Overview

  Set in Nipissing District, Ontario, this is Folly Lake. The land about it is pine and birch. At 5 hectares it is the sort of place you fish for an evening rather than a day. On size it sits at the modest end of our Nipissing District list. Some 46 km away sits Mattawa, the nearest settlement. It is 200 km to Barrie, the nearest city. No border sits close enough to matter.

• Where to Fish on Folly Lake

  No chart reached our records; the first cast is your sounding. Bays and points beat straight shoreline every time on water like this. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. Reported across Nipissing District: smallmouth bass, cisco and yellow perch. Read it as a county summary, not a water-by-water list. On Folly Lake that means starting tight and working out.

• Seasonal Patterns

  The seasonal spread runs -13°C to 18°C. The freeze arrives properly here and holds. Count on hard cover from midwinter, and open water from late April. Break-up near late April, freeze-up near late November: that is the shape of an average year. Look to early summer and the first cool weeks of autumn. It holds true on Folly Lake more years than not.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether you may fish here is not something records settle. Access is unmapped, which usually means a farm track and a walk. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Look for a notice board at the entrance. Where parking is tight, arriving early solves most problems. If the gate is shut, Pukina Lake at 1.6 km is the nearest alternative. Signs at Folly Lake carry more weight than any list.