Lac Solar in Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Within Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, you have Lac Solar. The surroundings are spruce and muskeg. It covers about 5 hectares, so this is small water you can walk round in under an hour. Saint-Félicien is the closest place, 59 km off. Saint-Prime lies 65 km off, Normandin another 65 km. Neighbouring water: Lac Sorbus (0.9 km), Lac Dart some 1.5 km off, Lac Rowco (1.6 km), Lac Lark some 1.7 km off and Lac de l'Humus (1.9 km). This one is safely inside the county line.

• Where to Fish on Lac Solar

  Depth figures are not published for this one. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. County-wide records name 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. Lac Solar gives up its fish to patience rather than distance.

• Seasonal Patterns

  The warm month here averages 16°C; the cold one sits at -18°C. Open water is the exception rather than the rule here. Ice-out usually falls in early May, and the weeks after it fish hardest. Open water usually runs from early May until about mid November. From the thaw to midsummer the fishing improves week by week. The season on Lac Solar rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  The rules here are undocumented as far as public sources go. 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. Look for a notice board at the entrance. Signs go up and come down, so check on the day. Lac Sorbus, 0.9 km away, makes the obvious fallback. Check the position on Lac Solar before loading the car.