Ice fishing Friday: Chasing giant lake trout on northern Saskatchewan’s remote Cree Lake

As my friend Greg Hartman stared down the 10-inch hole in the ice, his rod tip suddenly bent over as though he’d snagged a solid rock. Then barely a moment later, something began to pull on his line—and hard. At that, Greg firmly raised his rod and set the hook on a giant lake trout, our target species here on northern Saskatchewan’s Cree Lake.

“Fish on,” he hollered. “And it feels like a good one!”

“This is what we came to Cree for, my friend!” I exclaimed. “Keep the pressure on him, but if he wants to run, let him.”

Greg loves open-water angling, but he hadn’t wet a line through the ice in more than 25 years, so his learning curve was about to go sky high. The expression on his face was priceless as he battled the raw power of the fish, his medium-heavy ice rod and spinning reel pushed to the limit. The line hummed, and you could even hear the rod blank straining under the tension.

“When he eases up a bit, try and gain some line,” I advised.

After a few minutes, Greg was able to reel in a bit and gain a little ground, but it didn’t last long. Darting away, the big trout went on another good tear. Finally, after three impressive runs and a 20-minute battle, we saw the first bubbles coming up through the hole. As the handsome trout’s head bobbed, Greg finally guided it into the confines of the hole, where I was able to help secure the prize. After a few grip-and-grin photos, he quickly returned the massive fish to the frigid depths below the hardwater.

As with many great backcountry adventures, the planning for this one had begun two years earlier with a conversation. “Hey, have you guys heard about the giant trout in Cree Lake?” I asked Greg and two other friends. As with me, rumours of the lake’s stout trout, as well as impressive pike and walleye, had already caught their attention.

While we knew Cree was famous for its world-class open-water angling, it seemed less was known about the lake’s equally spectacular late-winter and early-spring ice fishing. But after scrolling through countless Instagram photos and YouTube videos, our plans for a hardwater adventure to Cree were soon underway.

Cree is a glacial waterbody located just south of the N.W.T. border, west of Reindeer Lake and south of Lake Athabasca in the Mackenzie River drainage basin. At that latitude, winter maintains its grip long into spring—even in late March, it’s common to experience extremely cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls. Knowing that, we quickly retired thoughts of a DIY trip and instead reserved a cabin at Garrett’s Broken Arrow Lodge, one of two lodges on the lake.

While we caught some great lake trout during that inaugural trip in March 2023, I wasn’t able to land any real giants of my own. Then last March, after waiting two years to revisit Cree, I finally had my chance at redemption, this time making the trek back north with my fishing buddy Randy Hermann.