God’s Lake Brook Trout

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Brook trout are a touchstone fish for many anglers. Some flyrodders think of little 6-inch fish from a cold mountain stream in Virginia; some imagine a “two-pounder” from a remote wilderness pond in Maine, or perhaps an ultra-rare “salter” from coastal marine waters in the fall. Every angler has their own version of the perfect brook trout. It’s often conjured from a memory of fishing small streams and the way some brook trout will attack a dry fly or streamer almost bigger than itself. Many call brook trout gullible, but one could also consider them as simply enthusiastic. No matter how smart they may or may not be, brookies are beautiful. Wild fish are often covered in red spots ringed with blue and gold accompanied by wavy markings of coppery gold along the back. They are exquisite fish and when they spawn in the fall from October through November, they may be deep crimson along the flanks and head.

Brook trout anglers also know about the legendary fish in Canada. Some populations of brook trout will migrate along the shores of large lakes and adjacent rivers and are known as “coasters.” The world-record brook trout was landed on the Nipigon River and weighed and astounding 14.5 pounds. That was over ninety years ago and the story of it all (and much more) can be read in great detail in Nick Karas’s fantastic book, Brook Trout, Revised Edition, A Thorough Look at North America’s Great Native Trout—Its History, Biology, and Angling Possibilities (The Lyons Press, 2003). Karas gets at the heart of why some anglers become truly obsessed with brook trout.

Artist Flick Ford has a thing for brook trout, he too heard about the brookies in eastern Manitoba and booked a trip in the fall of 2008 to stay at the God’s Lake Lodge. The plan was to catch-and-release-and-paint one of these beautiful wild fish. Flick hit the raging outlet rivers with the owner Robert Gates and local Native American guides. Using a sinking line and a streamer pattern he tied to resemble a small male brook trout, he landed many brook trout over 4 pounds. Flick carefully photographed, measured, and drew an outline of each trophy fish and released them all unharmed back into the river. Of the fish he caught, Flick selected a magnificent 22.5 inch spawning male that weighed about 6 pounds for his painting. The result is one of the finest portraits of a brook trout ever created.

Scott & Nix is proud to offer a wall poster print of the God’s Lake brook trout. Manitoba may be far away, but it’s good to know that huge wild brook trout cruise the northern waters and that anglers like Flick release them to swim another day.