Yellowknife

Yellowknife: The Provincial capital of the Northwest Territories, situated approximately 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Starting point of the ice road that leads North to the diamond mines in the Arctic. The town is on the shore of Great Slave Lake, the deepest lake in North America (2,010 ft) and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is 300 miles long and up to 68 miles wide.


I was in Yellowknife for the International Circumpolar Health Conference, but having heard that Great Slave Lake had massive Northern Pike I had my fly rod along just in case. My friend Matt (pediatrician and fishing fanatic from Anchorage) and I hired a guide that catered to fly fishermen and set out at about 9 in the morning. The time of day didn’t really matter since the closest thing to night was when the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned a bright pink for a couple hours before it came back up again. It’s kind of disorienting when the sun just goes around in a big circle rather than rising in the East and setting in the West. Fortunately we were blessed with a perfect day, with enough of a breeze to keep the clouds of mosquitos away, but full sun and temperatures in the 60s.

As we left town we went through a bay with a variety of houseboats.

We motored for about 30 minutes through a maze of rocky islands covered with small pines. We were in the Taiga, which is just south of the Tundra, and the trees don’t get very big.




We finally stopped in what was essentially a lake that was about ½ x ¼ miles that connected to the main lake via a deep channel about ¼ of a mile long. We fished by drifting across the lake with the bow pointed downwind, which allowed casting without worrying about a tailing loop getting blown over the boat and hooking someone’s ear.
The front half of the boat had a flat wooded deck, and we took turns standing at the bow casting. After making a cast we would step back away from the bow and start stripping line, allowing the other person to get up front and make a cast. Matt and I were perfect partners, with me being left-handed and he right-handed, we could each just cast and then take our preferred side of the boat.

We were casting 10’- 6”, 9 wt rods with big flashy streamers – think overgrown steelhead fly. The fishing regulations for all of the Northwest Territories require barbless hooks, which helps when trying to extract your hook from a toothy pike. It was tough duty trying to throw such big flies, but it sure was good practice for the double haul. Fortunately the wind was not very strong, and distance was not a big issue, all you needed was about 20-30 yards.



It couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 casts before the first hook-up. The water was only about 5 feet deep and you could see the fish as they came racing up after your fly. Sometimes they would just inch toward it and check it out, and usually the takes came when you paused for a few seconds between strips. Initially they tended to just bulldog down to the bottom, so you had to work to get all of your line onto the reel. But after a few tugs they would take off, stripping line against a very tight drag. We caught nothing but Northern Pike, also known locally as Jackfish. The size varied, with the average in the low 30-inch range. However, we had number of real monsters, two over 41 inches and several in the 36-40 inch range. This one of Matt’s was a little over 41 inches – notice his elbows are fully bent, no optical illusions needed for these beasts.



Getting the hook out was an interesting trick, but Colton had a spring loaded spreader he used to keep the mouth open while he reached in with his long pliers. He also wore a steel mesh glove for extra protection.



Pound for pound the Pike don’t compare to a steelhead or a Deschutes redside, but when you consider some of them weigh 15-20 pounds, they still put up quite a fight.

We caught so many fish we lost count. It got to the point that if you went more than 3 casts without at least a strike you starting thinking something was wrong. After 6 hours of double hauling and fighting fish my hands and forearms were so cramped I had to hold the rod with my forearm while bringing in fish. Even my cranking hand was getting cramped from the workout. All in all it was an amazing fishing experience, and a great chance to get out and really experience the land and waters surrounding Yellowknife.

After returning to town we did a brief pub tour and then had a dinner of Char and Whitefish, washed down with a couple bottles of Checkvar, also known as Budvar, the original Budweiser. Here’s a picture of the place where we ate, it was called “Bullocks”, which according to Wikipedia is a term for a castrated bull. The restaurant was run by a couple of very self-sufficient women, but that’s another story……….

The Middle D

We watched the flow and saw it drop Monday night from around 1500 to just below 900. On Wednesday we got there around 11 and it was gorgeous. Periodic sun breaks, wind was off and on, and a great water level. I started down below the big cut in the rocks with an Adams and got a nice redside of about 10 inches from the soft water along the edge of the main current. Fished hard for a while longer in that whole section but never had a rise and never saw another fish.

I then moved up to the wide flat area by the old barn / mine on the far shore, which is just before the river narrows and flows into the fast deep water. With the water level where it was there was just a nice soft riffle from the rocks on the bottom that made it look very fishy. Since there was nothing happening on the surface Mark and I ate lunch and then fired up a stogey and switched over to a nymph rig with stone fly and dropper. I joked that after all the gear changing the fish were probably going to start rising - and then I looked out at the stretch I wanted to fish and saw it boiling with risers. The fish were really slapping the water and I didn't see any bugs, so I figured they were after emergers. So back to the dry. This time I put on a Clark's Stone essentially as an indicator, and a soft hackle caddis emerger as a dropper. The first brownie grabbed the Clark's stone while I was letting it hang at the end of the drift. The current was cooking so it was a great fight on the 3 wt., coming in at just about 12 inches. The risers kept moving to different spots, and it was too deep to really get in close range so I just tried to be systematic in covering the likely water. The next brownie nailed the emerger, also while hanging at the end of the drift, it was similar in size to the previous fish.

The biggest thrill of the day came while drifting the nymph rig - the indicator took a dive and I lifted the rod into what felt like a nice fish. As I watched my line go streaming off the reel, unable to turn it back out of the current, I started running along the shore chasing the beast. Then about 5 minutes later when I got a bunch of line back it took off upstream on me. I'm thinking what kind of monster is this??? When I finally got it into shallow slow water I discovered the answer - it was a big-ass sucker foul hooked in the back. When I saw that I quickly pulled my fly free. None the less, that one really got my heart pounding - what a blast !!!

I think that 900 cfs is actually a perfect flow rate, there is enough water to allow the fish to move up into the flats, and it's still wadable. I think if the sun had been out a bit more the bugs and fish would have been more active, but it was a still a memorable day.

Gear on the Wilson

So I got a call from my friend Neil, who is a retired Doc that used to have my job, asking if I wanted to go float the Wilson for Steelies with a guide that he uses a lot. We met at 6:30 AM on the stretch of the river that runs through the dairy cow country on the flats outside of Tillamook. The winds were up in the canyon running down out of the coast range so we avoided that part of the river. We were in a drift boat and started off side drifting egg patterns with a heavy weight to get it down to the bottom in the fast current. It's essentially like nymphing without an indicator. We didn't get any takes so we switched to plugs. You hold in the current with the oars and trail plugs that dive deep into the current and slowly work the boat back and forth and down through the holes. We caught 5 steelies - 3 were wild and had to be released, but two were hatchery fish and came home with us - Sweet Meat !! Neil also hooked into a chinook. The season ended January 1st so we had to let it go, but what a blast that was. We were fishing with pretty substantial steelhead rods with casting reels and braided line. This chinook just toyed with us, there was no way to hold on if it decided to run with the line. After about 15 minutes Neil handed the rod to me, and I finally got it into the net. The estimated weight was 30+, I am totally ready to go back and hit the fall chinook run out there.

It was amazing to me that we could go out and catch 5 steelies in a day, whereas when swinging flies it's a great day to get one hook-up. I am thinking there may be a way to adapt hybrid methods that would allow you to get your fly down into the deep water where they were holding, essentially using the sink tip and some weight to get the rig deep and then slowly swinging back and forth as you slowly work your way downstream - we'll see. At any rate it was a great time, and fortunately it was warm and sunny over at the coast. Here's a shot of the one that ended up on my dinner menu.

Swingin' for Steel

After getting snowed in over Christmas and flooded over New Year's I was itching for some river time. Most of the rivers are still flooded or extremely high, but the Necanicum tends to drop and clear early, so I decided to give it a shot. There was still a lot of snow in the Coast Range and blown down trees everywhere along the highway. But the river was fishable, even if a bit murky still.

Having never fished the Necanicum I wasn't really sure of where to go. I talked to a couple of guys getting their eggs ready and asked about fly water. One of them told me "not on this river", and the other told me to head upstream a way and try glow bugs. I didn't have any glow bugs, but I took off back upstream and found a place to park along the road and bushwacked my way in along a little creek to the main river.



I was pleased to see - and smell - a number of salmon carcasses along the bank. I also saw a pair of really beat up old salmon getting ready to spawn in some gravel on a creek that was about 5 feet wide. This was a nice skeleton I found, it's laying next to my 8 wt.



I started using a tandem rig with a purple egg sucking leech and an old pink salmon egg pattern (almost a glow bug) as a dropper. I couldn't tell how deep it was but the rig was swinging nice so I just kept the faith and worked my way down a nice stretch. Suddenly I started getting pulls on my rod - could there actually be steelies in this muck ??? On the next cast I got a hook up - a beautiful 12 inch coast cutt - it would have been a ball on the 3 wt., but not much of a challenge with the big cannon.


After a while with no takes I switched to a dead drift with an indicator, but nothing doing, that cutt was the only fish I brought in. As the morning went on the river started clearing, which showed me that I was not exactly in the prime water, but at least I now have a good idea where to start next time out. Hopefully with clearer water the prime drifts will be easier to spot. If nothing else maybe I'll just bring along the 3 wt and catch cutts if all else fails.