It was almost midnight while we stood in a drizzle outside the airport in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. By getting to Whitehorse, we were 2,400 miles into our roughly 2,600-mile trip to Dalton Trail Lodge, where we’d spend a week chasing lake trout on a fly rod. The trip required four flights, a 2-hour drive from Whitehorse to the lodge, another 2.5 hours in the truck to a lake, and a 45-minute boat ride to a dry cabin where we’d stay for the prime lake trout fishing window.
I got tired just booking the travel for this trip. By the time we actually got on the plane and made most of the journey, I was a dead man walking. I have a bad relationship with sleep, especially when I’m not in my own bed. The first few nights we were gone, though, I slept like a rock.
For years, I’d resisted this sort of travel for trout fishing because it just didn’t seem worth all the effort. I’m lucky to live in the Rockies, where I can access a lot of world-class trout fishing in less than a day’s drive. I’ve saved travel for fish I don’t have the chance to experience here, like salmon and halibut in Alaska or tarpon in Florida.
But when you get a chance to chase shallow-water lake trout that can easily top 30 inches—in addition to 40-inch pike and trophy grayling— it’s the sort of thing you don’t really pass up, even if you have lake trout and pike within driving distance of home.
So that’s how I came to book a trip to the Yukon with my buddy Alex, with the sole goal of catching trout. I was quietly concerned the trip wouldn’t live up to its billing—we’d been told to expect relatively fast fishing for trout in the 20-30 inch range—and I’d come away feeling like it was far too much money for not quite enough in return.
I was wrong.
The Experience
This isn’t a paid promotional piece for Dalton Trail Lodge, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk up their operation. The lodging, food, and guides were top-notch, and they more than delivered on the promise of an unforgettable trip. I’ve had the chance to stay and fish from a few lodges here in the States, and Dalton Trail was by far the best experience I’ve ever had.
It wasn’t just the fishing that sold me on the value of traveling for trout, though. As any angler being honest with themselves knows, there’s only so much a guide can do to put you on fish. Everything has to work together—the weather, the fish, water temps, and often, the bugs— for the fishing to really be lights-out. But when you’ve traveled thousands of miles, and spent many more thousands to be there, it’s not uncommon to develop an expectation for the sort of fast fishing you read about in magazines.
We had two out of our six days that fell into that category. On the first day, we caught about two dozen lake trout in roughly three hours, all ranging from 25-34 inches. The second day that was better than we could believe was an afternoon spent fishing for grayling in a backcountry stream. Even by grayling standards, these fish were incredibly willing. It helped that they were larger than most grayling, on average.
The rest of the fishing was the sort of slow, methodical angling that’s exceptionally rewarding. It’s not necessarily slow; it’s more that you’re waiting for the pod of fish to cruise by again, to time your cast perfectly, to get the streamer to the right depth, and to lure one of the bigger trout in the pack away from the group and into your net. Again, a whole lot of stars have to align for things to pop, but when it does, you feel like you’ve pulled off something impressive.
That I was doing all this fishing in glacial lakes, beneath the enormous peaks of the southern Yukon, made it all the more incredible. Trout tend to live in beautiful places, and the Yukon is one of the prettiest I’ve ever fished. As often as I fish in Yellowstone, down in Utah’s deserts, or in Wyoming’s most remote mountain ranges, none of that scenery quite compares to what we had in the Yukon. It truly is a one-of-a-kind place.
The Fish
Lake trout aren’t an exotic species. They’re everywhere in my neck of the woods. In fact, they’re so plentiful in Flaming Gorge Reservoir that the limits on pups (fish under 28 inches) have been removed. But lakes with the right combination of food and shallow bays with spawning habitat that lure these large trout from the depths in spring and fall aren’t a dime a dozen, nor is there the institutional knowledge of when and where these fish show up.
Our guides knew the ins and outs of the lake trout fishery the way old-timers back home know the hatches on the Green. Thanks to their expertise, we had the chance to throw flies to truly trophy-sized fish, and even put a few of them in the net.
The big pike and grayling were a cherry on top of the trout sundae, and all these fish were something I don’t readily have a chance to fish for back home. Holding a 30-inch lake trout for release, bent over the gunwale of the boat on a glacial lake where we hadn’t seen another human for two days, is a tough experience to top.
The Place
We had a couple extra travel days on either end of the trip, and we spent them taking in the local area. The Yukon feels remarkably similar to interior Alaska, but it’s uniquely its own, too. It was eye-opening to experience the similarities and differences between America and Canada, especially for someone who’d never left the country before.
The food, the people, the scenery, and the wildlife were top-notch. We were there during the Yukon’s fall, so we got a glimpse of the place in all its resplendent glory. It was pretty enough that I’m already planning a trip to take my wife and daughter up there.
Worth It All
The travel, the exhaustion, and the expense didn’t feel like they’d be worth it when I started booking the trip. Two flights in, when we were stuck on the tarmac in Seattle with no A/C, I was ready to head home and get away from all the crowds. But that midnight taxi ride in a soggy Whitehorse, and the next morning picking from a Canadian menu at McDonald’s, felt at once exactly like being home, and not.
As someone who wasn’t that interested in traveling to chase trout, this trip changed my mind. I had experiences I’d never get here, with people I never would have met. That’s probably what shocked me most: how much I enjoyed everyone we ran into. I like to think I get along well with a lot of folks, but I also know I’m plenty opinionated, loud, and stereotypically American in a lot of ways. No one seemed to hold that against me, though, and we made fast friends with other anglers at the lodge.
Now, I’m looking forward to the next trip – bad sleep and all.