North America's Best Trophy Brook Trout

This series originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Fly Fisherman. 

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Like many fly fishers, I caught my first trout with a piece of worm clawed from the earthen streambank. I didn’t have a rod–just a safety pin, a piece of string, and a willow stick–but the gorgeous little trout were hungry and willing. I merely lowered the wormy morsel into the deepest spot in the creek and then levered a scarlet-bellied brook trout onto the bank each time I felt the telltale pluck.

For many of us, Eastern brook trout–now probably just as common in the Rocky Mountain West as in their native waters–were our first love in the trout world. Grownup anglers still love those little speckled trout, and the small, seldom-trod streams where they live, but our eyes have also opened to the possibility of 3- to 12-pound brook trout–the apex predators in the vast river systems of the Canadian Arctic. Here are some of the best places to catch the largest wilderness Salvelinus fontinalis.

Over the next few days, we'll roll out five of our favorites: 

• Lagrève River
• Gods River
• Minipi/Minonipi System
• Fortress Lake
• Awesome Lake/English River

Ross Purnell is the editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman.

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