Ep 114: Giant Brook Trout in Labrador, with Scott Muelrath
Scott Muelrath has taken many trips to Labrador over the years, but his favorite species to catch there are undoubtedly the giant brook trout that call the lakes in Labrador home. In this episode, he tells me about some of his trips, what it’s like to fish for such remote brook trout, the gear and techniques required, and much more.
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Katie
You’re listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 114 with Scott Muelrath on giant brook trout in Labrador. Well, I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into fishing. So I'd love to hear how you got your start in the fly fishing world.
Scott
Yeah. Well, thanks Katie. Thanks for having me on your podcast. So I love to fish. That's where it all started, right? and I think it was always kind of minnows under a bobber and lakes around the Bay Area. And then my dad, when I was 13, decided we were gonna learn how to fly fish together. And so, you know, he kind of looked around Northern California waters and settled on the Fall River in Northeast California, which is about, oh, it was about an hour east of Reading for those that know Northern California. And so this was going back quite a ways 'cause I'm 53 now and I was 13 then. So it was really learning how to fly fish early on on the Fall River, Hat Creek, when the fish were actually still kind of dumb, which was great. And then we went from there.
Katie
And what was the prompting for like, hey, we're gonna learn to do this together? I don't think I've heard that origin story before that a dad just decides like, we're gonna tackle this new style of fishing together.
Scott
Yeah, well, we just love to fish together. And I think it was just, and anything my dad does or did was always super cool to me. And I was like, yeah, I'm all in dad. So you figure it out and let's go do it. So yeah, so he researched guides and we ended up hitting the Fall River and did so repeatedly for many, many years. I still go there routinely.
Katie
And now tell me how you got from there to where you are now. 'Cause I know you've been fly fishing ever since. And it sounds like you've done a ton of travel, which I know we'll go into, but what takes you from Bay Area to really dry Nevada? 'Cause we were just talking about that before we got on, but what brings you here?
Scott
Yeah, well, you could say I followed my wife. I knew who I married. She's an academic who got her degree in history from Cal Berkeley. And she ended up getting a tenure track position at UNLV back in 2001 when those jobs were hard to come by, still are hard to come by. And so I said, "Sure, let's do it." And so we up and out, came to Southern Nevada, figured we'd only be here a few years and here we are 22 years later with kids that are native Nevadans. So that's the way it goes.
Katie
So tell me what the fishing is like around Nevada. I know you said the opportunities are a little bit limited close by, but how does one make the best of living in Nevada when they're a passionate fly angler?
Scott
Well, when I kind of had to reinvent myself professionally We moved from the Bay Area. And so I went into commercial real estate. In the Bay Area, I was in marina management. I was actually a harbor master, which afforded me plenty of cool opportunities to fly fish in and around the Bay. But I wanted to be by water. So we actually, after looking around in homes, we settled in Boulder City, which overlooks Lake Mead, which is just outside of the Vegas Valley. If you've ever been to Hoover Dam, you drove through Boulder City. And so I kind of gravitated to trying to figure out the striper fishery on Lake Mead with mixed success. There was, you know, when you'd have the hardware, I mean, they'd throw like these, they still do like eight inch plugs, they call them Allen coal plugs or AC plugs. And the gear fishermen could, you know, you could throw those things forever. And the fly caster, you're having to get in on a striper boil, you know, 100, 120 feet, 150 feet so you can cast. And the gear fishermen didn't like that. They'd be chucking their lures over your boat. And so it never blended too well with the other fishermen because I'd be looking for those pods of stripers. So I kind of figured out other avenues on Lake Mead to catch a few fish, but it's fun. You make the best of what you got.
Katie
Are you willing to share any of your secrets? I'm kind of curious now, like how one targets fish that are kind of made for gear fishing when they're determined to use a fly rod?
Scott
Yeah, well, if you can get to a boil before the gear fishermen and enjoy it a bit before they converge, but it's an early morning on Lake Mead and everybody's just cruising, looking for these boils, right? So you end up generally having to kind of go work some of the back coves and sometimes you'd find a little pot of bait fish that would break off and they'd be up on the shore, right up along the shore and the stripers would be pushing them up. So you kind of have to think, all right, if I can just go find a few fish, you know, smashing bait in the back of a cove and not try and chase down the giant boils of stripers, that's where you'd find the kind of isolated success. So a good day might be a bit more limited than if you could just sit there and catch stripers from a boil.
Katie
Now is there any such thing as blind casting for stripers? Or is it kind of a, if you're not on a boil, you're basically out of luck for catching one?
Scott
You can very much target them down deep with good fish sounders and finders and some common sense as to where they would be, but it's not nearly as exciting, right? So we all know that, but I don't do that too much. But yeah, you can, and you can also go down below Lake Mead where they plant trout still, couple of the beaches and marinas down there and you can target some of the really big stripers with you know big rainbow trout imitation flies as well.
Katie
Oh interesting. Are there any other species that you target in Lake Mead or are stripers kind of the main quarry there?
Scott
It'd be very good carp fishing if you want to do chase carp. There's lots of huge carp in Lake Mead and they're kind of predictable where you can find them too so yeah.
Katie
And kind of moving on to travel I know we're gonna end up kind of talking specifically about Labrador from Brook Trout, but maybe we can spend a couple minutes just talking about some of the travel you've done, because it sounds like living in a place where fly fishing is not necessarily as readily available as it is elsewhere in the country, it sounds like you've done a ton of traveling around. Do you have any specific places that you really like traveling and want to talk about for a little bit?
Scott
Sure. I've had the good fortune, my dad in his retirement actually started at his own adventure fly fishing travel business and fly fishing adventures is the name of it. And so he would always go really around the world and his pursuit is to catch a hundred permit by the time he's 85. So that's a permit behind me on the wall there, but, and he's at 76 right now. So those travels took him to Belize a lot. And I would, I still do. I go down there whenever I can when he goes down and I join him. Um, so that's, uh, I'm very fond of Belize, spent a lot of time down there and know the waters well. Um, while he prefers targeting permit, I prefer looking for a tarpon, which is my favorite game fish.
Katie
So what about tarpon draws you in?
Scott
Oh boy. I just, uh, I feel like they embody everything, all the great qualities of a classic game fish and they're. They're big, right? They get big, although, you know, arguably the ideal tarpon is like 20 to 30 because they're just a boatload of fun. But they jump, they're strong, they readily take flies, you can sight cast to them, and they're just such a powerful fish. So I still get kind of the passion and the hook really big tarpon, but you know catching the smaller ones is certainly easier and arguably more fun too.
Katie
And how about for trout? Where have you traveled for trout?
Scott
So I do get back to my home waters in Northeast California every year. You know, it's all different, right? I love catching a 12-inch trout on Hack Creek or Palm Lake on a size 22 midge as much as I do chasing a giant brook trout in Labrador on a size 6 stimulator. So it just fulfills something different, just different fish, different circumstances. I've enjoyed fishing in New Zealand, the South Island, the Fords in Chile, the Patagonia area, and a good amount of fishing around the United States as well. But those would probably be my top trout fishing experiences internationally.
Katie
Okay. So let's dive a bit into Labrador. I do want to dig into the logistics of taking a trip there and what it's like, but maybe just start with an overview of brook trout in Labrador. What makes them so special? Why do they get so big? Just give me the overall vibe of brook trout in Labrador.
Scott
Yeah. Well, it's such a special place. I think until we can get into the impacts of global warming, whether or not you think what the sources are that has we set expectations having been there and had the privilege to fish there on eight different trips over the past 25 years, we would tell other guests or those that go with us that your goal should be to catch a single brook trout over five pounds on a dry fly. That should be your goal going in. And the fishery, the lakes there, the Minnipee Lakes is a series of interconnected, very shallow lakes connected by, you know, connecting streams. And the lakes themselves, you know, you're talking about water bodies that are maybe seven to eight feet deep on average, having some deeper pockets that, you know, might get 30 or 40 feet deep. Of course, some of the bigger lakes, you can have some deeper spots, but the classic which is Anne Marie Lake, which is where Menipee really built its name, is a very shallow lake. And the fish that are there, the environment that's there is, you know, well, it's under ice, first off, for half the year, right? It's a very harsh, rugged environment. The logistics of getting to Anne Marie Lodge are very challenging, especially if you live on the West Coast. You you know, Toronto and go up to St. John's or Halifax and connect all the way to Goose Bay and then you take a float plane in to the lodge. There's no roads into the lodges. So everything has to be brought in by a float plane or helicopter. And so the fishery that's there, it was originally discovered by the great outdoorsman Lee Wolf. And you're going back to the late 60s when he actually worked for, well initially it was the US Air Force, but then he worked to work for the Newfoundland government in sort of charting and exploring the fishery there for tourism in Newfoundland, Labrador. And so he would literally go in on his float plane, land on these waters, fish a bit, and you know, take notes and kind of map out the area and for all of his trips he zeroed in on the Annemarie Lake and the Minnipee watershed as sort of the premier hub and then it's a very rugged environment it's very isolated it's sort of an eat or be eaten environment you really just have brook trout that again because of the very rich aquatic nature of the water, it's just very rich in nutrients. The insect life is unbelievable. Granted, again, it's frozen under ice for half the year. The lodge season there typically is going to run from late June to just maybe the first week of September. So it's a very, very tight window. And originally, so Lee Wolf documented all this, and then he got an operating permit to run the lodge at Anne Marie. He partnered with a gentleman named Ray Cooper and they opened the lodge. It was the first one there. And then in the nineties, the Cooper family, no relation to Ray Cooper, Lorraine and Jack assumed the operating rights for the lodge and created really a catch and release fishing environment where they tagged every fish, any fish over five pounds. and they would put number tags on them to try and keep track of where the fish were in the river system, how many of them there were. And so then they really opened up what was the first commercial fishing operation on the system. And they still own it today. The family's had some health challenges in recent years and some challenges coming out of COVID. But the watershed is, you have a handful of shallow lakes that are just connected that you work in a canoe with a guide that you have an outboard on the boat. And the beautiful part about it is that these brook trout are very dry fly focused. I mean, they are looking to feed on top. And when you get that big, you gotta feed aggressively over the time that you have to keep the weight on. And you just have a series of hatches would occur like clockwork over the years that these fish would dial in on.
Katie
So it's interesting to me that they can get so large with such a short window. Are they eating under the ice? I assume they have to be eating some other subsurface insect, not a hatching insect, while they're under the ice, and then do they just gorge themselves on emerging insects during the summer? It doesn't surprise me that something can survive But it surprises me that they can get so huge with such a limited opportunity. Do you know why everything has just worked out perfectly to make them so big?
Scott
Well, in talking to the guides up there, the thought is that they kind of huddle up under the... Because the ice gets really thick on those lakes. But there are certain parts of the lake where there's springs in the bottom, and the fish will kind of dial into those holes in the depths of winter. The water remains a bit warmer and that they can continue to feed, I'm sure, comparatively limited in the wintertime as compared to the summer. But then through their tagging program, they know that one of these five-pronged brook trout that they tag at the beginning of the summer that gets caught at the end of the summer can put on a pound of weight over those three months.
Katie
Wow. That's crazy.
Scott
Yeah.
Katie
I don't even get to it be a pound.
Scott
Yes. No, it is crazy. I mean, it's just hard to believe it until you're actually, you know, handling or playing in one of these fish. So, yeah.
Katie
What hatches go on? You said they go on like clockwork. What hatches are we talking about over the summer?
Scott
Well, up through the early 2000s, you know, the Drake hatches there are like nothing I've ever seen in my life and anywhere else in the world I will say. The Brown Drake hatch, which historically would occur in kind of middle of July, would just be, it would just carpet the lakes and it would slowly move down the system starting up at the lake above Anne Marie, it's called Mononopy, it would start up there and then within a week it would be down on Anne Marie and that would it would work its way down to the subsequent lakes. The Brown Drake is the biggest mayfly hatch I have ever seen in my life. You could have a square foot of water that you might have, you know, 25 mayflies floating on at a given moment. I mean it's just it's unbelievable and very dense and to imitate one of those brown drakes they're the smaller of the two drakes the Browns though you can you're probably using like a size 8 to 10 stimulator or some sort of mayfly imitation. The green drakes would close is the season traditionally the last week of July first week of August and again they'd be it's the biggest mayfly I've ever seen or imitated in my life and you know casting a size two wolf or a size six stimulator typically yellow I always found to be the best was the good imitation for these green drakes and And again, they would hatch right at dark. But one of the beauties of fishing so far north in Labrador, the guides have nothing to do, and the nights are short. So you are out there all day and fishing well into the night, often by sound, of working brook trout on these green drakes. It's just an unbelievable experience.
Katie
Are they picky at all? I kind of picture that if something has to get the majority of its food in such a short window that they'd have to kind of be not picky, but also fish don't get huge if they just take anything in front of them, I guess, or at least in a place that's not so remote. That's the logic I go through. Are they really picky?
Scott
They're not picky at all. They are very opportunistic feeders, and the hatches are... There's so many bugs on the the water, you know, sometimes you just think, why would that fish pick out my stimulator in all of these natural drakes that were, you know, sitting, you know, around it? And I, you know, the guide would say that it's just your fly looks a little bit different, but they would sure as heck rise up and, and take in your size six stimulator sitting around 30 other naturals. And you're like, how does that even happen? But they do it. Like you'd look at the water, you'd look at the rises and you'd think it would be a waste of time. But that would be the beauty of the hunt, if you will. The fish rise very measured. And ideally you're getting to them at the beginning of a hatch. The water, it filters through the tundra. So it kind of has a peat moss color to it. Not unlike if you're fishing in the mangroves, I mean, sort of tannins and there's a fair amount of sediment in the water, but the water's clear. It just, it doesn't look like it's clear because it's so stained, but they are not leader shy. And it took me, gosh, it probably took me three trips there to really unprogram my California Spring Creek instincts to, you know, really accept that I was, you know, that I didn't need to do anything other than cast a size six yellow stimulator on 3X tippet or 2X tippet, and they are not leader shy. And, you know, it's, the most important thing was trying to measure where they would rise next. And that was part of the amazing part of the experience is because you're in a canoe, you could actually cite one of these fish a ways out. The guide would cut the outboard. You would row up on the fish. They're, they move very measured, rather slow, and you could generally kind of predict might rise next and get your fly out on the water. And if you're a good caster, you can really have great success. And they would rise up and the hard part is they would move so slow and sort of lethargically until you hooked them. Sometimes you'd set the hook too soon or pull the fly out of its mouth, which is still an issue for anyone who goes up there. I think even you go repeatedly 'cause it's just so exciting.
Katie
So I'm obviously not asking you how many fish are in the lake, but my question is like, how many fish are there? And what I mean by that is when I go to, for example, Ohio Alpine Lake is, you know, the closest thing I've got to this. And you look out and you can sometimes pick out individual fish rising, but a lot of times it just looks kind of like a sea of rises. And if you focus in on one, you can sometimes follow the pattern, but it's not like one rise is moving its way across the lake. It almost looks like it's raining at times. But it sounds like what you're talking about is you see a rise and you're kind of watching that fish go along and presumably there's not a bunch of other rises going on next to it or you wouldn't necessarily be able to pick each individual fish out. Are there few enough of them that you're kind of looking for a string of rises and following that individual fish or are they all kind of rising all around you?
Scott
When the fish are up and the conditions are right, it's very calm and there's a good amount of bugs on the water, say the green drakes. You could be working one fish and while you're working that fish, you're trying to pick out another and if the conditions are right. So through their tagging program and if you look at one of the bodies of water like Anne Marie, there's not a lot of these fish. I mean they will typically catch one of those big brookies. It might get caught three times a season. And with the tagging system that they had, you know, that could be measured, right? So there would be maybe a few hundred of these big brook trout by big, I mean five to eight pounds, in a given watershed. And they wouldn't move far. They would you know, they might go up a lake or down a lake. There was one time where they actually had one of the brook trout reported at the river mouth and actually, you know, in brackish water that was like, you know, 50 miles away. Okay. But they don't move around much and they are limited. I mean, there's tons of small brook trout in the connector rivers and the feeder streams. That's where they hide from the pike and where they get a little, you know, grow up a bit and then they move into the lakes to feed because if they were there and they were less than 14, 16 inches, other brook trout, char, or the pike would be making meals of them.
Katie
Really? Okay. That was going to be my next question is how big do they have to get before they come up into the lake? You're saying about 16 plus inches is where they will start to move in?
Scott
I would say over eight trips going in and fishing those lake systems, I have probably caught on one hand on a dry fly, a fish under a pound. So yeah, they're, they're the little fish just don't risk being out there in the middle of these lakes. There's a lot of big pike and even, even the big brookies you get, they are beat up sometimes, know the big gashes on them from the pike and and and so it's it's it's a harsh environment for sure.
Katie
What what other species are in there besides pike and brook trout or are those the only two?
Scott
So you can also get Arctic char which are you know super cool as well I mean brook trout are they're they're a char they're not you know they're not a trout per se so but it's funny that the big brookies are are slow and measured and how they rise. Char are much faster and you don't know where they're coming up next. So it's it's a totally different fish and a different hunt but you know when you're chasing a char typically as opposed to a brook trout because they're just they move quicker they fight better they get a little bit larger than the brook trout but the same thing they will take they readily feed on top and you can get char you know 10 11 pounds on on a dry fly which is you know amazing.
Katie
So do you do anything different to target them or is it kind of like you cast out and you you might know if you have one on but you didn't actually do anything different in the process itself?
Scott
Yeah same gear same flies it's just what you come across in some years the chap the char might be a lot more plentiful and some years there you might not see any. So don't have an answer to why that is but they're pretty inconsistent as to how they they work in with the brook trout. But they do they give you some really hot runs you know a brook trout will slug it out you know not not long runs but the char will you know they'll run you hard. There's a much different fight yeah.
Katie
Do you ever target the pike when you're up there?
Scott
I have Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are times when nothing's going on, but you can always fall back on pike, or if the weather's quite bad, you can fall back on pike, definitely.
Katie
Are you using what you might use for pike anywhere else, or are you trying to cater to the fact that these pike are probably feeding on small-ish, I know small is relative here, but brook trout. Are you using any flies that are trying to mimic the smaller brook trout?
Scott
Yeah, I think you could say that. Again, my pike fishing is mostly limited to Labrador. So there it's just really large streamers around. They have lily pads, which I always found odd. Later in the summer, there's a lot of lily pads that come up and on one hand, you can be chasing a brook trout on one side of the lily pads and then there might be pike on the other. So, but yeah, the later you get in the summer, more robust the lily pad growth is.
Katie
Okay. Now walk me through like a typical day here, 'cause you said the days are really, really long. So, you know, what time are you getting up? What time are you kind of getting in the boat? And what is the kind of the cycle of a day like there in terms of fishing?
Scott
So it's, again, being very remote and not much, not much else to do but fish for the guides as well. You get up, you have breakfast, and then you're typically out on the water, you know, 9.30 ish. And then you fish, you usually take your lunch out with you. You fish until dinner. You come back to the lodge maybe around 4 o'clock. You have dinner. You're maybe at the lodge until 6:30. And then you're back out until 11. Sometimes later. It just depends on exactly what's going on, what's hatching, and if you can hear the fish rising, and if the moon's up. So I had, I mean, one of my more, you know, I had one day up there where I ended up catching 53 pounds of brook trout across eight trout. And I finished that day, it was in the green drake hatch was really, was really strong and we hit it just right. And it was, it was pitch black. I mean, you could not pitch black, but I mean, you could hardly see anything, but you could hear the fish still working. And there was, I probably landed three fish after dark, and there was one in particular, we could hear him working in the back of this cove, but we were working our way to him because there were other fish in between us and that really big brook trout. But sure as heck, it just kept working in that same 200 foot area. We finally got our way back to it and it ended up being an eight and a quarter pound brook trout, biggest one I'd ever caught on a size six yellow stimulator. And yeah, very, just such a memorable evening when that's going on.
Katie
What's the biggest brook trout they've tagged there? Do you know?
Scott
You know, I meant to look up the latest record. So there was a time when a handful of the world records were on the books from out of the Minnipee system. I'm gonna say nine and a half pounds, maybe. Yeah, it's been a while since I looked at the records, but there's an eight pounder, especially at the end of the season, is a gorgeous, beautiful fish, but not unheard of at all. I mean, there's usually a few eight plus pounders caught at the tail end of the season after they've been feeding all summer on the bugs.
Katie
I know you said that one fish in particular gained a pound over the summer, but do you notice the fish getting larger as the summer goes on? Is that like a trend that happens where if you were to go there and say, "I'm gonna catch the biggest fish I possibly can," you would wanna aim for that like late August time period because it's kind of toward the end of the season Or is that not something you'd really put much stock into?
Scott
Up until 2010, 2011, I would. And the guides would generally agree. What has happened in the more recent years is these hatches that have occurred on a clockwork as far as the calendar goes, Green Drake's first week of August, Brown Drake's July 10th, that the water has warmed. And I think, you know, the implications of global warming in the Northeast on watersheds like this first started to reveal themselves in these, you know, really shallow water environments where, you know, the water increasing a degree or, you know, radically two degrees. And all of a sudden that hatch cycle, which was so reliable based on our traditional calendar was kind of blown out of the water. Our last, the last two trips we booked there, you were getting brown drakes and green drakes hatching together like in the first week of July. So we had actually pulled our trip all the way forward by a month over those 25 years because the hatch cycle had moved forward because the water temperatures had warmed. So, I mean, it was just, we had the, I think it was the second to last trip I'd been there, it was just a smorgasbord. It was unbelievable. I mean, you'd have brown drakes leading into green drakes with the caddisflies. Everything would be happening in the first two weeks of July and then by the time you get towards the end of July, there was nothing left to hatch. I mean, even the caddisfly activity had fallen off to virtually nothing. So, how that has shaped in the last four years, they don't know. I have not returned to the lodge after COVID. I was there the summer before COVID.
Katie
Okay. Maybe what you just said is one example of it. I'm curious if there's any more examples of people at the lodge noticing changes from warming temperatures. I feel like it's obviously well-known that that's happening, but for any individual just living Away from an area that's being so acutely affected, it's easy to not really notice, like, "Okay, it's a little bit warmer this year," or whatever. We had a higher high on this day than in previous years. But I feel like people above some latitude seem to have more personal experience with how changes are actually manifesting. Have you heard any other descriptions from people up at the lodge about how things are changing over the years as it gets warmer, besides just the hatches moving forward like that?
Scott
Well, you know, on Anne Marie, they had the original lodge on Anne Marie was just an incredibly, it had so much character. It was very small. I mean, the only, it could take eight anglers and, you know, the lodge itself was, it had a classic feel to it, but it was also very small. And, you know, the walls were pretty thin. And, you know, like if you were the newbie there, you would know not to get the, you would rush off the float plane and you would get one of the rooms to the back. You wouldn't get one by the kitchen because it would just, there'd be a lot of noise in the front. But when the Coopers closed the original lodge and built a new lodge there, it took them, again, the fishing season is three months while the construction season's four months and you gotta fly everything in, right? So it took probably at least four years for them to complete what is considered the new lodge at Annemarie. And the snow would, they'd be able to get in sooner. The snow melt would occur sooner and they'd be able to get in and start working more frequently on the lodge upkeep. They subsequently built a couple other lodges And then they've kind of gone through rotation now. There were four different lodge buildings at one point. Now I believe there's just two operating. Because it's really hard, as you can imagine, keeping those tiny lodges going, keeping the whole thing profitable, and having it fit into the fishing season, and having to use the float plan to get clients in and out everywhere. So those lodges have a shelf life, no doubt about it. And they would always have trouble with bears getting into them during the offseason too.
Katie
So I want to maybe wrap up with kind of some logistics. Like if someone were to try to do one of these trips on their own, it sounds like DIY is not really a thing in this area. Is that a good first question to get past?
Scott
It is. know you can't you just can't access these systems unless you're have a float plane and and you're staying at the lodge there's no not really any shoreline and you know the black flies and the mosquitoes are epically bad so you got to be ready for that and it's just access is incredibly limited.
Katie
Okay and what is the response to black flies and mosquitoes like how do you keep those away?
Scott
Deet all the time, just layers of it. Wearing mosquito netting is not a bad idea. I mean sometimes they're just worse than others. Typically when you go on a portage, when you hike up to one of the other lake systems, you'll have to hike through the tundra. That's when it can be really bad. Often when you're out on the water in the canoe it's certainly manageable. And it's also, it's typically pretty cold. So you know you're covered up too. So but I swear those black flies have an intelligence that you don't see other places. They just they find it. They just find it wherever you don't put Deet. So yeah.
Katie
All right and logistics of getting there. I remember you said flying through Toronto and then eventually taking a float plane. But you know if someone wants to fly in there what's kind of the the steps of arriving at the lodge? You know if you're flying out of any given big city in the U.S.?
Scott
Yeah you should plan two days to get there because you get into Goose and then, you know, the weather is very changeable, right? You're way up there in the northeast, just below Greenland. And it's, you know, one day it might get over 80 degrees and two days later you might have a snowstorm. So it can really vary widely. So going in, you allow a travel day to get into Goose Bay, and then they fly you out of Goose Bay to the lodge, you know, based on the weather and based on coordinating the different float planes. So you know, you're spending two days to get into the lodge, but then when you get there, usually you can go fishing that afternoon, which is nice. Conversely, coming out, same thing. If the weather, probably half the trips I've been there, I haven't been able to get out that I originally planned because of weather in at the lodge. So which you just have to go in without expectation and worst case is you wait half a day for the float plane, doesn't come, you go fishing. You know once they kind of give up on the rotation for the day. So yeah.
Katie
So do you need to kind of give yourself a buffer of like say you've got a main flight out of there you know out of Toronto or wherever back to you know Nevada, Las Vegas near where you are. Do and say, you know, I might make, my float plane might make it back days in advance and I might have to find something to do in Toronto, but if I don't, then I've got those couple days to kind of absorb a delay in the float plane, or do you, like, how does that work with the airlines? Not really knowing when you're gonna be able to make it to the airport.
Scott
Yeah, well, it's all about Goose Bay. So once you get into Goose, you know, that part's usually straightforward. So the delays generally occur going from Goose Bay to the respective lodges. And the Coopers are also very good at, you know, they're used to it. So, you know, they're quick to, you know, work with travel agents, work with schedules, work with the airlines to get their clients accommodated. Gotcha. 'Cause it's more the norm than not, so.
Katie
And what is the process of booking a float plane? Like, is that, I assume that's not extension of the other airline you'd be flying in? That's something separate that you'd book? And if so, how do you go about doing that?
Scott
Yeah, the Coopers, as part of the packages, you know, they're week-long trips. The airfare on the float plane and the coordination of all that's covered by the outfitter. So they keep that real easy. The Coopers have their own float plane too, but they typically use The beavers are the smaller ones, the otters are the ones you'd rather fly in. They're just a little bit bigger and they contract with the firms out of Goose Bay to operate the otters.
Katie
Okay, cool. And then how about gear? What weight rods are you using for these brook trout? Pike I assume are kind of like standard if you're fishing for pike anywhere you could use that rod, but what about these giant brook trout? I would have no idea what size rod to bring for that.
Scott
Yeah, so when I first started, I mean, I used a five weight, which wasn't the right rod for the fish or the fishermen. I mean, it took a while to, you know, a six or a seven makes it easier to punch those big flies. I mean, a size two gray wolf, I mean, it's crazy. You're, you know, so having a six, I usually use a six weight.
Katie
Okay.
Scott
It also, when you, if you're fighting a seven pound brook trout, having a little backbone, 'cause they will just go in and sit on the bottom under the canoe and you're kinda, you know, you're just kinda, you gotta have a little lifting power. And so having a stiffer rod, at least a six, is definitely best for the fish as well. And just getting it in quicker, yeah.
Katie
Then I assume all floating lines, if it's pretty much dry fly fishery, is that accurate?
Scott
Yeah, I mean, you don't have to worry about, again, you know, the color of the line or anything else. I mean, just having a line that shoots well and the better you can cast, the more successful you're gonna be. Having said that, you know, there'll be times when these brook trout will be, you know, the guides work in the canoe with a paddle and you might be 30 feet, you know, from these fish. So, but if you can, you know, if you can cast at 80, 90, 100 feet, that just opens things up for sure, so.
Katie
And then are there any other gear considerations that you would deem as important? Like, do you bring waders at all or is it strictly from the canoe and it's not even worth bringing something like that along?
Scott
Yeah, no, good question. So I just wear waders all the time. It's just usually the weather's changeable on every day. Usually it's gonna rain at some point and it just allows you to be geared up appropriately. If you do a portage, if you're going from one lake system to another, have to hike, waders are a big plus. They protect you from the bugs as well. There are a few spots where you can get out and wade. You better be rather sure-footed. The guides don't like to do it, but I've been there enough. I know a few holes that I'll just be like, "Hey, let me out here at, you know, this certain run." And I know where there'll be a hole or two, where there could be a brook trout, you know, hold up and I can go chase after them. Which I kind of like, I like jumping in and you know kind of clambering over some of the rocks but there's not much waiting though. You could avoid it entirely. There are some of those, some people have been going up there for so long and there are, I mean my dad's 80 so I mean it's, you know clambering around on those rocks is not great for some.
Katie
Now when you say hop out, does that mean in the lake itself there's like some shallower areas you can get out or in the streams that connect the lakes?
Scott
Yeah like on an outflow, beaching the canoe above the outflow and then hiking down into the outflow. That was the other thing I had never caught a trout on a mouse or a you know a lemming or anything like that and Labrador was the first and it just kind of blew me away. I mean it's just an incredible experience seeing them come up and wake behind it and you're like oh that's that's a pike It's not a trout. And you know, there you are with a seven and a quarter pound brook trout with your mouth hanging out of its mouth when you land it. It's just, you know, it's just still kind of mind blowing. So.
Katie
That's crazy. I didn't know the brook trout did that. Even at that large size, I wouldn't have guessed that they were that predatory.
Scott
But yeah, there's, yeah, some of the inflows, outflows, there's some that are better than others. But if you fish those and they hadn't been hit by another one of the anglers, usually there would be one big brookie that would have it staked out and you could get it up on a big tractor pattern like that.
Katie
Wow.
Scott
Yeah.
Katie
So do you have any future trips planned here?
Scott
So we haven't. After COVID, the complications, for so many years too, the prime hatch windows were just booked. someone would literally have to die in order for a slot to open for you to get into one of the prime windows in the '90s, the 2000s, and even into the, up through 2013, '14. Then they opened the bigger lodge, which helped a little bit but once COVID hit, they ended up with a big backlog and they had to make good on a lot of the trips and it kind of pushed people out two years on being able to go up there. And then the Cooper family had some health challenges as well, and they actually didn't even open the Anne Marie Lodge last summer, and I believe they had limited this summer. And so I'm hoping they'll be back to it full scale and full bore next year, and then the subsequent years. They may end up selling the operation as well, I don't know. But it's always been a family affair, and it was a very special place. And I'm not, the fish are still there, I guarantee it. Unless they, you know, unless the water temperature became such an issue, they, you know, they moved out into different watersheds, but I'm ready to go back, definitely. So.
Katie
It sounds kind of like a heaven on earth up there. Everyone I've talked to says it's just incredible.
Scott
It really is. I mean, I've had the good fortune catching a lot of big trout in great, amazing circumstances around the world. And there's something about those Labrador brookies that just sets it apart. It is truly an adventure. It really is.
Katie
Is it like the wildest place you've fished?
Scott
Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's just nothing else there. And so it's very, very isolated. And it was probably in about 2012, they actually ended up finally getting Wi-Fi there, which kind of bummed me out. I was like, "No, don't do that." But, you know, so they do have Wi-Fi now at the lodge, which you have to, right? But I remember still kind of being bummed about it and not telling my work or anything that, in fact, they had Wi-Fi for the first year they had it. (laughing)
Katie
Well, as long as there's no phone service around and they keep it just to the lodge, then hopefully it's more of a help than a hindrance at that point.
Scott
Yeah, no, that's true. Once you leave the radius of the lodge, you're out of range quick. Yeah.
Katie
Well, Scott, this has been a ton of fun. I've had, actually, quite a few people talk about brook trout in Labrador, but I never get sick of hearing about it, because it just sounds... It doesn't sound real when people talk about it. You talk about the brook trout eating mice and stuff like that. It just doesn't compute with... Basically, the rest of the... Lower 48 implies that we're talking about the U.S. I know we're not, but down here, it just doesn't exist in any form. about it it's always a treat and I appreciate you coming on today to fill me in on it and get me excited about maybe doing a trip like that someday.
Scott
Yeah, no I love talking about it and yeah special place nothing else like it so I hope they can preserve it as is and as was.
Katie
Sounds good me too. Well thank you Scott I appreciate you taking the time and let's keep in touch.
Scott
Alright thanks Katie.
Katie
Alright that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening if you want to find all the episodes as well as show notes you can find those on fishuntamed.com you'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me and you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed if you want to support the show you can give it a follow on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcasting app and if you'd like to leave a review it would be greatly appreciated but otherwise thank you all again for listening I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode take care everybody
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