Advertisement
If you could only wet a line for one species of fish in your home province or territory, what would it be? That’s the question we asked ourselves at Outdoor Canada when selecting our 2019 Canadian fishing hot spots. For more bucket-list species and hot spots, see our complete list.
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES: LAKE TROUT
Lake trout from Great Slave Lake (courtesy Steve Buchart)Lake trout in the Northwest Territories
Why this is one of Canada’s must-have fishing experiences
It’s one of the few undisputable facts in fishing: the N.W.T. is the best place in the world to catch lake trout, with the frigid depths of the territory’s north-country lakes home to a simply astonishing number of truly giant fish. If you catch a 20-pound laker anywhere else, it will likely be your fish of the season. In the N.W.T., however, when you get a 20-pounder, you admire it for a moment, then quickly release it so you can keep hunting for an actual big one. Fish of 30 pounds are common, and on these trophy waters, any bite could be a leviathan of double that size.
Advertisement
But Far North trout aren’t just heavy. Life in the Arctic also makes these lakers thickly muscled and shockingly powerful. They don’t fight fancy, like their rainbow trout or Atlantic salmon cousins, but lakers will doggedly pull and dive and pull, stressing tackle—and the angler—to the breaking point.
Incredibly, the world-record 72-pound laker caught on Great Bear Lake in 1995 has been informally bested more than once. Registering a new record requires killing the fish, however, which the anglers refused to do and let their records swim away. There’s no better measure of the awe and devotion inspired by these magnificent fish than that.
WHEN TO GO: July and August
Advertisement
HOT TACTIC: Vertically jig a paddletail swimbait on a heavy jig
LEARN MORE: www.spectacularnwt.com
Advertisement
THE HOT SPOTS
- Aylmer Lake
- Blachford Lake
- Duncan Lake
- Gordon Lake
- Great Bear Lake
- Great Slave Lake
- Harding Lake
- Hearne Lake
- Ingraham Trail Lakes
- Kasba Lake
- Lac La Martre
- Mackay Lake
- Mosquito Lake
- Nonacho Lake
- Point Lake
- Prosperous Lake
- Sambaa K’e
- Scott Lake
- Stark River
- Watta Lake
[easy-tweet tweet=”@OutdoorCanada says catching a lake trout (or 50!) in @spectacularNWT is one of Canada’s must-have #fishing experiences. Find out why, how and where to do it ” user=”OutdoorCanada” hashtags=”fishingtrip, bucketlist, SpectacularNWT”]