Thursday, July 16, 2009

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……….

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