Lac Brigitte in Mauricie: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Mauricie in Quebec is where Lac Brigitte sits. The surroundings are pine and birch. Surface area runs to about 5 hectares — small enough to read in one session. Saint-Tite at 43 km is the nearest place to stop. For a city, Trois-Rivières is 75 km off. Near neighbours include: Lac Bibo at about 1.6 km, Petit lac Fraser a shade over 2.1 km, Lac du Castor Noir at about 2.1 km, Lac de l'Aralie a shade over 2.1 km and Lac des Iles at about 2.4 km. Rules here are straightforward: one set of provincial rules.

• Where to Fish on Lac Brigitte

  Depth is not on record here, so the bank has to tell you. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. A natural lake fishes on cover, and cover here means weed and timber. Survey and observation records for Mauricie include northern pike, brook trout, walleye, yellow perch and white sucker. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. Read Lac Brigitte for ten minutes before the first cast goes out.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Average temperature peaks around 18°C in July and bottoms out near -14°C in January. Winter closes the water for a while, and the reopening is worth catching. Firm cover through the cold months, then open water from late April. The water is typically free of ice between late April and late November. The shoulder weeks of the open season are the productive ones. That is the shape of the year on Lac Brigitte.

• Tackle & Baits

  Who may fish here is not settled in anything we hold. We find no slipway, car park or made path within a short radius, so treat access as rough. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Where the road in crosses private land, ask first. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. Lac Bibo sits 1.6 km off and takes the overflow. What applies at Lac Brigitte may have changed since it was mapped.