Lac Orignal Fishing near Albanel, Quebec

• Overview

  Lac Orignal lies within the bounds of Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec. It sits at 316 metres above sea level. At about 12 hectares, a day is enough to walk the shoreline properly. Roughly 2.2 km of bank means you can walk to a fresh area when one goes quiet. The nearest place of any size is Albanel, 54 km away. Dolbeau-Mistassini is 56 km and Pont Rouge 59 km. The nearest boundary is well away, so one set of rules covers the water.

• Where to Fish on Lac Orignal

  No published figure covers depth, so learn it as you fish. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. A soft bed grows weed late into autumn, which keeps fish shallow. Across Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, recorded fish include 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. Fish Lac Orignal to its features, not to its size.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Between January at about -20°C and July at about 16°C, the water has a wide range to work through. The season is measured in weeks rather than months. Once it clears, about early May, the fishing comes on quickly. Break-up near early May, freeze-up near mid November: that is the shape of an average year. The strong weeks are the first after break-up and the last before the freeze. On Lac Orignal that shapes the whole year.

• Tackle & Baits

  Access is not recorded for this water. This is a natural basin, not a dammed one. There is no mapped parking or launch nearby, which keeps numbers down. 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. Signs go up and come down, so check on the day. If the gate is shut, Lac Chausson at 1.7 km is the nearest alternative. Check the position at Lac Orignal before loading the car.