Lac du Portage Fishing near Saint-Félicien, Quebec

• Overview

  Lac du Portage lies in Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec. The water sits 516 metres up. At 9 hectares it is the sort of place you fish for an evening rather than a day. It is high ground by Quebec standards. Saint-Félicien lies 50 km from the water. The big place round here is Saguenay, 152 km distant. The county line is nowhere near, so one local authority covers the water.

• Where to Fish on Lac du Portage

  We hold no survey for this water; read the slope of the shoreline instead. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. Read the surface for the wind lane, then fish the edge of it. Public occurrence data for Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean names 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. Read Lac du Portage before you fish it and the day goes better.

• Seasonal Patterns

  July is the warm end of the year here, averaging about 16°C, while January sits near -18°C. The window is narrow, and fish feed hard while it lasts. The lid arrives early and lasts until roughly early May. Break-up near early May, freeze-up near mid November: that is the shape of an average year. Spring is short and heavy here; autumn is longer and steadier. That is the shape of the year on Lac du Portage.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether the bank is open is not something our records settle. Access is unmapped, which usually means a farm track and a walk. Pike mean a wire trace, no exceptions; big spoons and jerkbaits do the searching. Some banks are open only from a marked point. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. The nearest alternative is Lac Plamondon, 0.9 km out. Confirm access to Lac du Portage locally before you travel.