Renowned fly fishing author John Gierach has his fished in and written about countless fly fishing destinations throughout the course of his storied career. So when Gierach calls a particular destination “my favorite place to go in the whole world”, serious anglers tend to take note.
For Gierach, that place is Labrador. The video below shows him and fellow anglers netting one immense Labrador brook trout after another in the remote Canadian province.
Labrador‘s vast labyrinth of fresh water lakes and rivers is home to the world’s heartiest stock of wild brook trout. Gierach even goes so far as to headily declare the waters of Labrador the “center of the spiritual universe for brook trout.”
Over the year’s, brook trout have been allowed to thrive here because of the remote nature of the waterways and the extreme measures that anglers must take just to fish for them. There is no stocking whatsoever, and catch and release practices are strictly implemented by local guides and camp owners.
“When I step out of a canoe, I’m not sort of guessing, I’m positive that no human has ever put their foot their before,” says long-time Labrador fly fisherman and managing partner of Three Rivers Lodge in the southwest Labrador, Robin Reeve. “My foot went there, and that’s really exciting to me. That’s what has driven me for the last twenty-something years. My passion is sharing this with other people.”
The best brook trout fishing in Labrador can be broken up into three general watersheds: the Minip and the Eagle River water systems in the Southeast and the Mackenzie/Woods River system in the west.
