We stood waist deep on a shallow reef while waves crashed against our backs, threatening to throw us off-balance and right into the drink. Since we were in the Yukon instead of somewhere warm, the idea of taking a swim wasn’t appealing. The north wind carried a bite, it wasn’t too much above freezing, and my fingers were starting to sting as I stripped my flies over the edge of the reef.
My buddy Alex and I were here to chase shallow-water lake trout and pike, and maybe the odd grayling if we were feeling up to it. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Alaska, but I’ve never fished outside of the US. The Yukon is nothing short of awe-inspiring, and I know I can’t do its landscape justice. The best I can probably describe it is to imagine a land on the scale of Middle-Earth, but with the far north’s usual short trees, barren mountaintops, and thick subarctic forests. Oh, and most of the rivers and lakes are crystal-clear, tinged slightly blue from the glaciers that are the source of all life in these parts of the world.
This particular part of the Yukon—at Dalton Trail Lodge, just south of Haines Junction—is stuffed full of more water than you can explore in a few lifetimes, so we were happy to have the help of guides who had a good idea where the fish were. That’s why we stood on a reef just off a long point of shoreline on one of the region’s biggest lakes, casting six-inch flies with the wind at our backs. Alan and Greg, our guides, usually see big lake trout cruising this reef in the last weeks of the season, when the giant char come into shallow water to feed before spawning.
With the wind blowing hard enough to form whitecaps on the lake, though, the normal visibility in the water was reduced to a few inches, at most. If the fish were there, we couldn’t see them. So we were casting blind, out to where Alan and Greg assured us the dropoff was, and the fish were likely cruising.
I felt a soft bump on my fly, so I stripped hard. The line stopped dead, like it was stuck in a rock. I lifted the rod tip to yank the fly free, and that’s when the rock started swimming away.
The fish tore off towards open water, putting the drag on my trusty old Hardy Ultralite ASR to the test. This reel has seen some things—including a few fish I never landed at Pyramid Lake—and it’s not in the best shape. But the drag is smooth and tight, and it did a great job of tiring this fish out as I brought it back to the net. While it wasn’t huge by the standards of the fish we knew we could catch, it was a great start for someone who’d never caught lake trout on the fly before.
The rest of the day passed slowly, even though the wind died down. The fish weren’t in the other spots Alan and Greg thought they’d be, although we did find some pike in a bay on the far side of the lake. Those were my first northerns on the fly, too.
I’m not trying to downplay the fish, because they were incredible. I’ve never caught trout that pulled as hard as lake trout slamming streamers in six feet of water. But what really stands out about this trip isn’t the fish. The whole experience almost feels like a dream now. I went from staying at a lodge with a dozen other guests, and having entire lakes all to ourselves, to standing in long lines at the Vancouver airport. Instead of stopping for the grouse that consistently strutted out into the dirt roads we spent so much time on, I’m stuck in traffic at stoplights. It’s incongruous to think that these two worlds exist on the same planet, especially because so many people are unaware of just how awe-inspiring the Yukon really is.
As someone who hasn’t traveled all that much to fly fish, I’m not afraid to admit I never quite saw the appeal. I love my trips to Alaska, but those are mostly to spend time with my best friend, who lives there eight months of the year. In our half-dozen trips together, we’ve mostly spent time poking around for grayling, filling the freezer with sockeye, or driving Alaska’s road system. The fishing is fun, the landscape is dramatic, and we lucked into trophy-sized grayling more than once. But we rarely ventured too far off the beaten path.
In the Yukon, even at the lodge, we were largely alone. We went two days without seeing another person on an overnight trip to a lake known for its trophy fish. That much stillness and quiet is addicting. It’s been hard to adjust to the real world after leaving the Yukon, one of the least populated areas in North America.
I’m not going to forget the fish. They were incredible, and I wonder if lake trout are my new favorite fish to target on the fly rod. But the big thing I took from this trip is the value of putting in the work to get as far away from the real world as possible. Traveling to places where you can actually disconnect and take a look at landscapes that are still largely intact is worth the headache of airports and flying.
So worth it, in fact, that I’m already planning a return trip next fall.