Lac Smuts Fishing in Laurentides, Quebec

• Overview

  Look for Lac Smuts in Laurentides, Quebec. Elevation runs to 431 metres. It runs to roughly 24 hectares — big enough to hold fish away from the bank, small enough to learn. With about 2.3 km of edge, you can try several depths in one session. Ferme-Neuve at 81 km is the nearest place to stop. For a city, Gatineau is 212 km off. It sits well inside its county, with no border complications.

• Where to Fish on Lac Smuts

  No chart reached our records; the first cast is your sounding. The shallow end warms first and pulls fish in ahead of the rest. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. Reported across Laurentides: pumpkinseed, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, brook trout and rock bass. What holds for the county may not hold for this water. The near bank of Lac Smuts is often the one people ignore.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Temperature averages peak at 17°C in July and bottom out at -17°C in January. This far north the hard season runs and runs. Hard cover is dependable here; it goes around early May. Break-up sits around early May on average, with the water closing again about mid November. June through September is the settled part of the year, with the shoulders busier for fish. Lac Smuts fishes to that pattern most years.

• Tackle & Baits

  Access status is simply unknown for this water. This is a natural basin, not a dammed one. No made access is recorded, so a short walk in is the likely arrangement. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Check locally before you travel, because a wasted drive is a long one. Where the way in crosses private ground, ask first. For a change of water, Lac Alexander is 1.5 km distant. Check the position at Lac Smuts before loading the car.