Nunavut

I will concentrate on four main areas Nunavut, The North West Territories, The Yukon and Alaska. I'll start off in the east with Nunavut. Although I have been to this area at least once a year since 1995 I have only fished in a couple of different spots, those being The Coppermine River and the Coronation Gulf out of the village of Kugluktuk. The main species targeted in these two areas is the mighty arctic char, a close relative of the lake trout and the eastern brook trout. The lodge I guide for (Trophy Lodge on Great Bear Lake) offers char fishing on the coppermine river as one of it's fly out destinations. It's a long flight to these northern fishing grounds from the great lake to the south west, approximately two and a half hours by DeHaviland Beaver float plane. But well worth the trip, especially if you hit the timing right. Char are anadromous fish, meaning that they are born in fresh water but at some point they migrate to the ocean to spend at least part of their life cycle in the salt. This being the case, the angler's job is to try and intercept the char as they migrate to and from their spawning grounds. In July 2005 I had one of those magical moments, I was guiding a group from Illinois on a day trip out of the lodge. We had a spectacular day with over one hundred char landed! With fish as large as seventeen pounds. Most of the char in this system average four to eight pounds, with fish up to twenty pounds a possibility. The most productive lures for char are Mepps Cyclops, Rocket Devile's and the king of char lures the Blue Fox Pixie. Almost any one ounce brightly coloured spoon will catch char, with my favorites being hot pink, hot orange, chartreuse and fire tiger. The most productive technique is to cast quartering up stream and bounce the spoon off the bottom while following the lure with the rod tip. The strike varies according to water conditions and the fishes mood. One fish may just stop the lure making it feel like your lure is stuck in the rocks or on weeds and another will try and rip the fishing rod out of your hands! After the strike the fish will often jump a couple of times before using the current to it's advantage and running up and down the river. Other species of interest here are lake trout and grayling. The same lures used for char work equally as well for lakers. The number one lure for grayling is a number two or three blue fox spinner in gold or silver. Experienced fly fishers can have a lot of fun with all three species of fish. For char brightly coloured streamers work well, lake trout are partial to darker streamers and bugger patterns while grayling like smaller dark streamers and nymphs.

Our next Nunavut destination is Kugluktuk. This Inuit village on the shores of the Coronation Gulf is an awesome place for the adventurous angler, with friendly down to earth people & plenty of chrome bright char. A trip to this part of the arctic is a do it yourself deal, as there are no lodges in the area. I had a chance to fish here in 1999. We had a scheduled trip to the Coppermine River, but were unable to land due to fog. The client asked about detouring to Kugluktuk for some shopping and sight seeing. When we arrived the client brought up the idea of fishing there. After inquiring we made plans to go out onto the ocean for char. We met up with our guide who turned out to be the deputy mayor and loaded our gear into his boat. After a 15 to 20 minute boat ride we were in the fishing grounds, an area with many rocky islands, our guide put a couple of us out on an island to fish there while the rest of the group did some trolling. While we didn't catch any char off this island we did manage to catch a bunch of Rock Cod. Later we ended up on another island where we managed quite a good catch of silvery char. These ocean version fight quite a lot harder than they do once in their natal rivers. Spinning and casting gear is the way to go here as longer casts are necessary. The same hardware used in the rivers also works out in the salt. If you are also a paddler a combo trip can be arranged. A two week canoe trip down the Coppermine with a couple of days in Kugluktuk on the way home. Canoe trippers get dropped off about a three hundred or so kilometers upriver at the headwaters and fish on the way down to the ocean. The mouth of the Coppermine is just east of the town.

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