When it comes to tackling giant lakers, the NWT’s remote Great Bear Lake Lodge offers the full-meal deal

There are a few reasons Great Bear’s lakers grow so darn big, and it all begins with geography. For starters, this is one giant body of water, spanning some 31,153 square kilometres. It’s the largest lake entirely within Canada, in fact, and the eighth largest freshwater lake on the planet. Given that, there’s an enormous amount of capacity for producing fish. And while the fish grow slowly here owing to the year-round frigid northern waters and shorter growing season, they also grow to be very old and, as a result, very large.

How old? Up to 60 years in many cases. And how large? Well, the official world record was caught on Bear, a 72-pounder hauled in by the late U.S. laker aficionado Lloyd Bull. That was in 1995. Then in 2000, angler Aivars Slucis pipped that with his unofficial new world record, weighing in at 78.85 pounds and stretching the tape to 53 inches. Imagine seeing that on the end of your line. Those freaks aside, respectably large fish continue to be routinely caught and released. One day during my visit last July, for example, guest Garry Eekhoudt of Winnipeg boated a 55-pound beast, while his son, Daniel, recorded a 42. A few days later, Agissiz, B.C.’s Neal Trebink earned bragging rights with a 48-pounder. Awesome genetics are also clearly at play.

Another thing the trout have going for them on Bear is they’re largely left alone to slowly grow into giants. The lodge is way up there, on the lake’s northeast Dease Arm extending above the Arctic Circle. It’s Bear’s northernmost section of water, a 250-kilometre boat ride from the nearest (and only) community on the lake. That’s the Dene First Nations community of Déline, tucked into the Keith Arm, in the opposite southwest side of the lake. And there are only two other sportfishing operations on the lake, Trophy Lodge and the self-guided Arctic Circle Lodge, which are also run by Plummer’s and also accessible by air only. Combined, the three camps host a total of just 475 anglers maximum during the short fishing season running from late June to late August, and they’re each nestled in totally different arms of the lake. You must remember, too, there’s a ton of water to cover up there. Fishing pressure? Hardly.

Isolation aside, the one other major factor that allows Bear’s lakers to become lunkers is the way Plummer’s manages the fishery. Barbless hooks prevail here, as does the mandatory catch-and-release of almost every fish. Only small trout, typically the abundant insect-eating redfin morphs, are kept for the occasional shorelunch. And the guides are rightfully sticklers in terms of handling the fish, preferring to hold the slippery giants for the more inexperienced guests when it’s time to quickly snap hero shots. Ugly gill grabs are strictly verboten. On Great Bear, the trout demand, and receive, nothing less than the utmost respect.

Add it all together, and you can only come to one conclusion. For that, I defer to former long-time guide and now fisheries biologist Craig Blackie, who wrote his PhD thesis at Dalhousie University on Bear’s lakers. “Anyone who knows anything about trophy lake trout,” he says, “knows that Great Bear Lake produces the largest trout in the world.” And there you have it.