When it comes to tackling giant lakers, the NWT’s remote Great Bear Lake Lodge offers the full-meal deal

The distinct odour of surfacing baitfish fills the still morning air as we finally begin trolling after a 34-kilometre run north from camp. All around us, Arctic terns dive and skim the surface of the dead-calm water, gorging on insects. It’s a good sign, I’m thinking. Surely the big fish will also be on the feed, and hungry for our enticingly wobbly Hawg Nose plugs running just 21 feet down.

Our guide is certainly confident. Reid Stoyberg has been scoping out the area, what he refers to as “The Bluffs,” all season long already, putting his lucky guests on fish in the process. But not just any fish. We’re on the hunt for lake trout, or more precisely, the so-called grey morphs, the largest of the four laker types found here on the N.W.T.’s Great Bear Lake. They are the piscivorous apex predators of this vast northern lake, filling their ample gullets with whitefish, Arctic grayling, ciscoes and hapless smaller trout. You won’t catch great numbers of these fish, but the ones you do land will typically be large.

The boat ride out from our cabins at Plummer’s Great Bear Lake Lodge was chilly, but we’re soon shedding layers as the sun beams down through the cloudless mid-July sky. It’s around 9 a.m., and already the surface temperature of the water is a relatively balmy 64°F, well above the seasonal norm in the 40s. The fish down in the much cooler water where our baits are running don’t seem to mind, though, and soon the action heats up, too.

If you’re after a trophy lake trout, and a legitimate shot at a record-book fish, Great Bear Lake Lodge has all the ingredients

In short order, I reel in two decent lakers in the 20-pound range, which we quickly release boatside. The other guest in our 18-foot custom-built Lund is Michael Hunter, my appointed fishing buddy for the week. Not to be outdone, he soon tightens up on a fish. Judging by the healthy bend in his rod, the head shakes and the peeling of line, it’s no 20-pounder this time.

Now, Michael is a big guy, the imposing head chef and owner of Antler, a popular Toronto bar and restaurant famed for its game-heavy menu (pan-roasted venison rack, anyone?). But even still, once he has his catch hoisted free of the net and held close for the obligatory quick photos, it’s clear this is one monster of a fish—all 45 pounds of it, according to Reid’s trusty scale. With that, the Hunter Chef, as he’s known on social media, declared he now had a new personal-best laker to his credit—“by far.”

If you’re after a trophy lake trout, and a bonus legitimate shot at catching a record-book fish, Great Bear Lake Lodge has all the key ingredients to make it happen. Just ask the Hunter Chef. As for me, this was my first return to Bear since my initial visit in 2008, giving me another crack at besting my own PB laker, a 37-pounder I caught even earlier back in 2005 on northern Saskatchewan’s Milton Lake. And despite my limited experience on Bear, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the goods on the legendary lake’s recipe for success.