Lac Elst in Mauricie: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Lac Elst is set in Mauricie, Quebec. The water sits 426 metres up. It covers about 6 hectares, so this is small water you can walk round in under an hour. Some 83 km away sits Chapais, the nearest settlement. The nearest city of size is Saguenay, 263 km away. Close neighbours run: Lac Gilbert just 3.1 km, Lac Quenneville at 3.7 km, Lac Arty just 4 km, Lac Beaucours at 4.1 km and Lac Suzanne just 6.1 km. No boundary runs near, so the local rules hold throughout.

• Where to Fish on Lac Elst

  No depth figure appears in our records, so the bank has to tell you. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. Bays and points beat straight shoreline every time on water like this. Public occurrence data for Mauricie names northern pike, brook trout and walleye. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. Treat Lac Elst as a water to read rather than to cover.

• Seasonal Patterns

  July runs about 16°C on average, January about -19°C. The freeze holds for the better part of the year. Firm cover through the cold months, then open water from early May. Averages place the thaw at early May and the freeze at mid November. The middle of summer slows a little, with dawn and dusk carrying it. Lac Elst fishes to that pattern most years.

• Tackle & Baits

  There is no clear statement anywhere on who can fish it. Nothing is listed nearby for parking or launching a boat. Bass water: a Texas-rigged worm near cover, a spinnerbait when you need to cover ground. Where a permit is needed, the nearest town usually sells it. A polite question at the farm gate opens more banks than anything else. Failing this one, try Lac Gilbert, 3.1 km away. None of that is settled for Lac Elst in what we hold.