Rainbow Trout fishing near Sharbot Lake, ON

1,176 documented waters within 300 km, 71 of them with rainbow trout as the primary species.

Where they are biting today

Fishing rainbow trout around Sharbot Lake

The waters around Sharbot Lake give rainbow trout anglers real options: 1176 documented waters in range are on record for rainbow trout in our Ontario catalogue, and their daily scores - built from weather, water temperature at depth and species-fit modelling - decide the order shown above rather than reputation or hearsay.

Blakely Lake (Bancroft) leads today's ranking at a score of 76 (about 66 km from Sharbot Lake, roughly 9 m of water at its deepest). Cardwell Lake (Bancroft) follows at 76 (about 112 km from Sharbot Lake). Clayton Lake (Dorset), scoring 76, rounds out the current leaders (roughly 8 m of water at its deepest). Each number compresses the day's weather, modelled water temperature at depth and how well those conditions suit rainbow trout into one comparable score.

Rainbow trout feed heavily on aquatic insects, making fly fishing an especially effective and popular approach - matching whatever's actively hatching (the real logic behind 'matching the hatch') often outproduces guessing at random patterns. Rainbows are widely distributed in the Great Lakes and their tributaries plus some inland lakes; in spring they gather in warmer nearshore water off river and harbour mouths and along sandy or gravelly windward shorelines. In tributaries, drifting roe bags, egg patterns or beads under a float is the dominant approach, downsized with light leaders in clear water; on the big lakes, trolling spoons and minnow-imitating plugs takes fish.

Everything above is recomputed daily - the numbers on this page reflect September 14, 2026 - so check back before committing to a water: the leaders genuinely change as weather systems move through.

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