North America's Best Trophy Brook Trout: Fortress Lake

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

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Fortress Lake: 52° 22' N, 117° 47' W

Catching a fish on your first cast is usually a bad omen–but there are exceptions. Three of us flew into British Columbia's Fortress Lake in August 2005 to see if the brook trout are still as big as when I fished there in 1990. Back then the fish averaged 3 pounds, and the memories of that trip have been rattling around my brain ever since.

After arriving at the lake we hauled our stuff to the cabins, ate a quick lunch, and went to the boat dock. Brian and Dave took one boat and I got in another. We started the outboards and headed for the west end of the lake. Just two hundred yards along, I realized their boat was no longer beside mine. Their motor had stalled, and Dave was doing the balky lawnmower routine trying to restart it. I idled nearby for a couple of minutes, but when it became apparent that their motor was simply flooded, my patience and grace disappeared. I roared off around the nearest point to where Chisel Creek dumps into the lake, planning to wait for them there and maybe make a few casts before we continued up the lake.

With the boat anchored about 60 yards offshore, I cast to where the silty gray creek mixed with the glacial blue lake water, let the fly sink, and started to retrieve. On the fourth strip there was a thump that connected me to my first Fortress Lake brook trout in 15 years. I landed the fish, pleased to see that it was about 3 pounds, and hooked another on the following cast. A blank cast followed, and then I hooked a third big brookie on the next pitch.

My companions still hadn't arrived, and I began to sense the nagging of my conscience. I pulled anchor and went to check on them, arriving just as they got their motor going. The problem had been pilot error, and Dave had now mastered the Zen of outboard operation. I may have told them that I was able to hook only three fish in the ten minutes I was gone.

We spent the afternoon at the mouth of tiny Chisel Creek, wading and casting streamers along the shoreline. The fish were stacked there and we caught more beautiful 2- to 6-pound brook trout than anyone deserves.

Fortress Lake changes the way you think about brook trout. The lake lies just west of the Continental Divide among the highest peaks in the Canadian Rockies. It is in Hamber Provincial Park, which is part of a United Nations World Heritage site. The lake is 7 miles long and a half mile wide, with a maximum depth of about 200 feet.

Fortress Lake was naturally devoid of gamefish until the 1930s, when Parks Canada biologists first introduced Eastern brook trout from Ontario's Lake Nipigon system. The all-tackle world record brook trout of 14 pounds, 8 ounces, was caught in the Nipigon River in 1916, and the genetics for big brook trout are obvious on Fortress today. The fish have thrived, spawning in the Wood River, which flows from the west end of the lake, and near the mouths of numerous small feeder streams that tumble off the mountains.

Fortress Lake and its brook trout are a beautiful "mistake" that could not be made today. The introduction of an exotic species into a fragile wilderness ecosystem would be considered a shameful example of politically incorrect biology, but like a few other importations–pheasants and brown trout come to mind-it's difficult to regret this one. To paraphrase, "This is now, and that was then."

The brookies in Fortress feed on leeches, scuds, and chironomids, but most of the successful fishing is done with streamers like Woolly Buggers, Clouser Minnows, and leech patterns (#4-6).There is not much dry-fly fishing, perhaps because of a scarcity of aquatic insects and perhaps because the lake lies in a steep valley and has little shallow water.

The standard fishing routine is to work the woody shorelines, creek mouths, and the outflow of the Wood River, either from boats or by walking and wading in a few suitable places. Though the weather is most reliable in July and August, in early summer and autumn the lake carries less glacial tint and sight-fishing is possible. The fish are beautiful, and like all big brook trout they are strong, persistent fighters that stay deep and simply refuse to come in.

The lake is accessible only by hiking or by commercial floatplane flights to the Fortress Lake Wilderness Fly Fishing Retreat. The flight to Fortress is pure Rocky Mountain exhilaration-up canyons, over glaciers, past waterfalls, and around 12,000-foot peaks. The trip starts at the town of Hinton, a three-hour drive from Edmonton (the capital of Alberta) and passes the Columbia Icefields, from which water drains to three oceans.

Private flights and horseback travel to the lake are not permitted. You either hike to this public water, or fly with the single commercial outfitter.

The 18-mile hike to Fortress begins on Highway 93, south of the town of Jasper, and requires a ford of the Chaba River prior to reaching the lake. Hikers may camp at one of three tiny (one tent each), primitive campsites, but fishing from shore is difficult in most places because of dense timber and deadfalls. Hikers can arrange to be picked up by boat and taken to stay at the lodge.

Fortress Lake Wilderness Fly Fishing Retreat can accommodate 16 people comfortably in tent-cabins. Nine aluminum boats with motors are available for guests use.

Some experts have declared Fortress Lake brook trout fishing the best in North America, and most consider it at least the best in the West. Either way, it is spectacular. The fish, the setting, and the isolation make it one of fly-fishing's special experiences. The lake record brook trout weighed 11 1/2 pounds. Will that do?

Click here to read the entire Trophy Brook Trout series.

Jim McLennan is the author of Fly Fishing Western Trout Streams (Stackpole Books, 2003) and owns and operates McLennan Fly Fishing Schools in southwest Alberta.

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