The Joy of Fly Fishing in New Brunswick

I was always curious about fishing for lake trout but never really cared much for fishing so deep. I am more a shallow water or top water guy. But I still wanted to experience catching big fish that are much deeper than any fresh water fishing I have ever tried.

So a friend and I saved up the money to go on a fly in fishing adventure an hour or so flight north of New Brunswick into Quebec.

The screen capture from Google Maps show where we started and where we landed to go fishing. At the bottom of the image you will see the water that separates New Brunswick and Quebec. We took a ferry across to Baie Comeau.

From there we stayed the night and the next morning, bright and early, we were on a flight north, with lots of beer I might add. I am not much of a drinker but my buddies sure were. I am sure they brought their own weight just in beer. It was funny to see it all piled up for a 7 day trip.

The beer was gone by the end of the trip and we never took any out on the water. Man they drank a lot of beer, at least five to my one.

We started our fishing going deep, real deep, almost 100 feet, but we really were not equipped for that kind of fishing and it took for ever to get our lures down that deep.

We still caught lake trout and were happy as kids in a candy store.

After a couple of days of fishing really deep I took one of the boats out and headed to a couple of spots I thought I might catch some brook trout. No luck with the brookies, never saw or hooked one all week. But…

… I did see a big fish that I thought would be a record brook trout. She was sitting in a small cove in very shallow water, so shallow I am sure it was not more than 3 or 4 feet deep at the deepest points.

I cast my line in that direction and BAM Fish On.

Picture taken by Fishing Friend Kerry Jones

It turned out not to be a brook trout but a lake trout. I hadn’t even thought of it being a lake trout as I had only thought of them in deep deep water.

I am not sure how long I was there before guilt started setting in and I headed back to the camp to tell the boys about it.