27 Pound Lake Trout that Karen Landed-Her New Personal Best!
Trying to catch a gigantic lake trout on Great Bear Lake is indeed a challenge. What I mean by big is over 40 pounds! Our group of 6 was fortunate enough to have a head guide who has 11 years of experience on Great Bear Lake. It is hard to believe that Reid has been guiding at Great Bear Lake for that long. He has been quite careful to keep track of where and when he has caught lake trout! Our other two guides benefited greatly from his experience as well. Reid knows where to look if you want to catch lots of lakers or if you want to spend your day trying to find a trophy! Karen and I have been at Great Bear Lake two previous times as has my buddy Leon. Doug had fished Great Bear once before and this was a new experience for Mike.
We knew that the water temperature was a bit higher than usual and the lakers were spread out. That was going to add to the challenge. Finding bigger lake trout is more of a hunting game than just fishing an area. Electronics help a lot and past knowledge is so important!
We wanted to find a monster that would bite a fly. Our best fish on previous trips was 29 pounds in 2019. I tied up a number of Bauer Rigs and added wiggle tails for added action. We trolled with deep 7 lines and added a front 15 feet of T-18 full sink line. Our leaders were long, almost 20 feet with a swivel about 7 or 8 feet from our flies. We also had large arbour reels added on to our 12 weight rods. We figured that our flies were down 20-25 feet. We also had lots of success with white articulated streamers.
You have to take your time with a big laker. They can easily bend out your hook. They will come to the surface when they are ready. We often saw the lakers spitting up capelin (large forage fish).
Reid took us to some amazing places on Great Bear Lake. Some days we motored close to 30 miles before we even started to fly fish. The poor visibility some days meant our guides had to rely heavily on their navigation tools. Hitting a reef would definitely have a bad outcome. Our guides were quite careful and they did not have any problems.
Our day started off at 8 am right after a hearty breakfast. Two of our days, the guides prepared an amazing shore lunch and one day we had sandwiches. Our days were full. Sometimes we returned to the main lodge at 6:30 pm, just before supper time.
A Bauer Rig! Nicholas Bauer designed these for pike but we have been successfully using them for Lake Trout too.
Take a look at the fly colours!
Reid Stoyberg -GPS in Hand!
A New Personal Best for Bob-32 pounds.
Doug and Mike with some decent lakers!
This giant was 25 pounds. Karen need some help holding her prize!
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