Report of an arctic char fishing trip

We just got a letter from Mr. Jacques Brault who is a contributor to the Quebec magazine “Pêche à la Mouche”. Mr. Brault  has fished with us in mid-August, along with his two friends Mr. Howard Bussey from Montreal, Quebec and Mr. Bernard Bourgeacq from l’Ile de la Réunion, France. The letter came with a few pictures that we are sharing with you.

Our dream becomes reality when the seaplane alights on the widening of the river and slides graciously towards a large rock where tires soften the docking. We take our rods and pack sacks, and follow our guide. We climb a rocky promontory and trek for twenty minutes to reach the rapids.

The water is incredibly clear. We can distinguish each stone on the river bed and to our total happiness; we can see the white fins of a school of arctic chars swimming at the bottom of the pool. We cast our small nymphs, my two companions and myself, and let them sink before retrieving them in short strips.

On the first cast we are, all three of us, connected to a silver torpedo that shoots from one end of the pool to the other. What power and what endurance! I think that a char is more pugnacious than a salmon.

By the end of this first day of fishing, we have each caught many chars, varying in weight from five to ten pounds.

We are at Rapid Lake Lodge and are fishing the lower pools of the Baudoncourt river. The site is superb.

During our five day stay in mid-August 2012, this scenario was repeated several times, which made this fishing trip totally exceptional.

And as all the rivers are attained by floatplane, we also flew over extraordinary scenery: canyons, rocky mountains, emerald and turquoise rivers.

A trip to fulfill our dreams, probably our best one ever undertaken.

 Jacques Brault; contributor to the magazine Pêche à la mouche

 Photo credit: Jacques Brault, Montreal, Quebec