Etang des Mousses Fishing in Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec

• Overview

  Etang des Mousses is a Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean water, Quebec side. It sits at 424 metres above sea level. Head to Roberval, 50 km away, for anything you forgot. Beyond it, Métabetchouan at 51 km and Chambord at 52 km. More in the same country: Lac de la Tete des Mousses (1.1 km), Etang de la Trappe out at 1.4 km, Lac au Foin (2.2 km), Lac Trappe a l'Ours out at 2.3 km and Lac Secret (2.5 km). There is no boundary nearby to worry about.

• Where to Fish on Etang des Mousses

  No published figure covers depth, so learn it as you fish. Read the surface for the wind lane, then fish the edge of it. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. County-wide records name northern pike, Atlantic salmon, lake whitefish and fallfish. Protected fish appear in the records for this area, so treat the list as information, not an invitation. At Etang des Mousses light and wind decide more than tackle does.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Averages here run 17°C at the top of summer and -17°C at the bottom of winter. Open water arrives late and leaves early, which concentrates the fishing. Once it clears, about early May, the fishing comes on quickly. Averages place the thaw at early May and the freeze at mid November. From the thaw to midsummer the fishing improves week by week. The season on Etang des Mousses rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  Public data does not answer the access question here. No slipway, car park or made path shows up nearby in mapping, so treat access as rough. Pike mean a wire trace, no exceptions; big spoons and jerkbaits do the searching. Check locally before you travel, because a wasted drive is a long one. Check whether bait restrictions apply before you buy any. Lac de la Tete des Mousses sits 1.1 km off and takes the overflow. Confirm before you fish Etang des Mousses.