Labrador Brookies

My dream vacation!!!

Yep - a true Chaz Heaven.

Yep, Canada is the place to go for BIG brookies. Get up there Chaz, you owe it to yourself! I've always wanted to fish Gods River in Manitoba.

The brown and smallie takes were awesome!

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Did you watch the same video I just watched? Saw a few pike and a bunch of big brookies...

gotta love any brook trout trip where the guides recommend a 9-foot, 6-to-8-weight rod, and are actually serious! hard to think of brookie fishing with anything but a 6-to-7-foot, 2-4 weight rod for tiny fish in tiny tribs, but then you see this...definitely on my bucket list.

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0:49 sure looks like a Brownie to me and 1:05 is a pretty good smallmouth.

By the looks of it, they catch atleast one of every freshwater species in that video lol.

That was just the intro to the show. Probably plays the same clip for every show.

The show itself only shows pike and big brookies.

Ridiculous.

eh, doesn't impress me that much. I'm just never impressed by these resort lodges. Nor do big fish get me going.

A buddy of mine last year backpacked 7 or 8 miles up a lesser known but still very good river in the Teton National Forest. Unguided. Set up a tent camp for 2 weeks. Within a 2 mile hike were 6 or 7 smallish streams with brookies and cutties, and a larger stream which contained the gammut of trout species.

I s'pose that kind of thing comes a lot closer to my dream trip than a fancy lodge at a well known destination. Heck, it might not be my super dream, but I'm awfully happy doing a similar thing right here in PA.

The thing is you can't get as remote in the lower 48 as you can in Canada, that lodge is fly in only. You fly in from Goose Bay to the lake. That part of the attraction and the idea of catching a really big brook trout, like 8 to 10 pounds is a real possibilty. A friend of mine who goes to Osprey Lake every year, has to line class world records. Both fish over 10 pounds. His brother had a 12 pounder.
The closest you come in the lower 48 to fly in only is in Maine, with a couple of other exceptions like Selway Bitteroot Wilderness. Maybe the Bob.

River of No Return in central Idaho, etc.

Well, first, I'm not telling you what to enjoy, only my own preferences, and they're allowed to be different. I don't deny that the remoteness of those places is an attraction, and I certainly wouldn't turn down such a trip if someone offered it to me free. I just pictured my dream trip, and it looked far different, that's all.

The lodge and idea of "destination" water is a bit of a turnoff for me, I'm not all that enthralled with the destination/business side of fly fishing. New Zealand, Patagonia, and all that jazz. Same for guiding, I'm not opposed to hiring a guide, I think it can be good as a teaching tool, but my dream trips where the aim is to have a blast fishing do not include a guide. At best, I'd think about hiring someone to get me there, drop me off, and pick me up at the end. Horse, bush plane, whatever.

And the big fish is nice, but also not a strong attraction. Size is relative to the water anyway. So the rivers are full of 20+" brookies? Well, then, 20+" suddenly loses it's luster for me. The same as a 24" football of a steelhead ranks merely as an "average" fish in the Erie tribs. And a 12" native brookie is awesome in some infertile mountain stream but merely a good fish in some more fertile streams.

And if I'm gonna pick a really remote place, I'd probably go for something more mountainous than Labrador. The wilder areas of the rockies do hold an attraction to me. The Bob, River of No Return, some areas in British Columbia, etc.

P. Understood, but in the case of Labrador it's about the only way to do it short of owning a float plane. Plus in most of that part of Canada you have to have a guide.
I'm not much of an advocte for using a guide either, but I sure think it would be wise in Labrador.
The River of no Return is on my bucket list, when do you want to go?