Motz Lake Fishing in Sudbury, Ontario

• Overview

  Motz Lake stands in Sudbury, Ontario. It sits at 396 metres above sea level. Roughly 34 hectares: a morning covers one end, an afternoon the other. A shoreline of some 3.7 km keeps the choices simple. The nearest town is Chapleau, 26 km away. Wawa is 129 km and Timmins 148 km. More in the same country: Longwell Lake at about 2.2 km, Pole Lake near enough 3 km, Hebden Lake at about 3.2 km, Lackner Lake near enough 3.9 km and Daer Lake at about 4.7 km. One jurisdiction covers this water end to end.

• Where to Fish on Motz Lake

  Without a survey to go on, judge depth from how the bank falls away. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. On a natural lake the weed line and the shelf beyond it do the work. County-wide records name smallmouth bass, northern pike, yellow perch, Iowa darter and walleye. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. Motz Lake repays a walk before the first cast.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Averages here run 17°C at the top of summer and -16°C at the bottom of winter. Open water is the exception rather than the rule here. Hard cover is dependable here; it goes around late April. Break-up near late April, freeze-up near mid November: that is the shape of an average year. Fishing peaks soon after break-up and again before the cold returns. The season on Motz Lake rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether you may fish here is not something records settle. Records list it as a natural water body rather than an impoundment. 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. Gates get locked out of season on water like this. A polite question at the farm gate opens more banks than anything else. Longwell Lake, 2.2 km away, makes the obvious fallback. None of that is settled for Motz Lake in what we hold.