Pretty Gananoque Lake offers good fishing for northern pike as well as smallmouth and largemouth bass. Gananoque Lake was formed when the Gananoque River was dammed. The river is a tributary of the St. Lawrence River. Though it is not a natural body of water, the 30-km long, narrow lake provides plenty of habitat well-suited for a variety of fish species, including perch, bluegill and black crappie. The lake's shallow bays in its southern end are good spots. Cast into the weed beds for largemouth bass and pike.

Posting on Angler's Atlas, online user Eris2krat writes, "the back bay area, which runs between 5 and 19 feet [deep] usually produces a lot of pike in the 28-inch range. This year, we caught some of the smallest pike I have ever seen in the area. We moved to deeper water, across from the lodges, and were still catching small pike. The largest pike caught was exactly 28 inches.

"We were also catching and releasing a lot of out-of-season largemouth bass in the 3-plus pound range. Smallies were being caught in 20 feet of water. The high temperatures caused a lot of early spawning and the bass are venturing out while the pike have taken to the depths. Run your inline spinners, rattling clacking traps, and wild eye swim baits deep. There was a lot of action regardless of the species. I went 7 for 10 (fish per casts) on one drift pass the crank."

The nearby town of Gananoque, on the St. Lawrence River, was voted Ontario's Ultimate Fishing Town a couple of years ago, and with good reason: excellent fishing in the lake and surrounding streams.

LAKE ACCESS

Gananoque Lake is approximately 16 km north of the town of Gananoque, which is a three-hour drive from Toronto, two hours from Ottawa and about three hours from Montreal.