McKenzie River - Labrador trip report (pix heavy)

[JHbowhunter]

TFS Brian - just simply awesome trip.  I can only imagine.  Glad you got to experience it...  So when you going back?

[Joeybeets]

Fantastic trip of a lifetime!!! 

[Bucksnbows]

25 minutes ago, TroutandBucks said:

awesome cant wait to catch up on this trip 

Bring a Band-Aide for your ear afterward.  

17 minutes ago, JHbowhunter said:

TFS Brian - just simply awesome trip.  I can only imagine.  Glad you got to experience it...  So when you going back?

I have a standing invitation to guide for that lodge which I took as a great honor!  But their newer Arctic Char lodge way up north might be on my list.  It would be very, very hard to top this trip, and I fear another to the same place could be a let down.  The entire experience, even the minor bickering between some of my buddies who were in small spaces together 24 hours per day for nearly 12 days, was worth doing over.  

Here is info on the lodge we stayed at.  The staff listed there are not current although a couple were: http://mckenzieriverlodge.com/en/

[Bucksnbows]

This is Sabrina Barnes, a very young 23 year old guide much more mature and hard working than any others her age I come across.  She can cast like no other as I watched one evening after work when she was sight fishing for pike in the back cove.  The guides do not fish nor are they allowed while with clients.  I just liked taking photos of them with my fish they were releasing as memories of their hard efforts.  

Sabrina is someone to keep an eye on in the fly fishing world.  She is young, but poised.  As she gains better US connections into the fly fishing industry and strengthens her English, she's going to be a star and likely with her own show.  She is also a complete sweetheart and a great person.  I often felt like an uncle offering advice.     

 

BTW, those are teeth marks on that very old salmon and likely from a big pike or most likely a big lake trout.  It was war up there!  Osprey talon marks, islands full of whitefish scales, scat from otters, pine martins, beaver, muskrat, bear, and other all over feeding off the river.  I can't ever recall catching so many fish that had narrowly escaped death in the wild.  Fortunately for the fish, we were using single, barbless hooks and all catch and release except for 4 nice pike for a shore lunch one day.     

Edited July 17, 2018 by Bucksnbows

[Bucksnbows]

Shore lunch photos:

My buddy Doc served up absynth "bone dry" martinis with the olives speared on raccoon baculums (look it up  ).

[kanigie]

So awesome Brian. 

[Bucksnbows]

We were just happy not to have to claim any foreign animals being smuggled back to the US.


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[LPJR]

Epic trip indeed Brian! Outstanding pics and descriptions of everything

[Bucksnbows]

If you go, hit the Quartzite River and fish "my rock".  Slowly fish up to it and all around it.  Then hop up on top of it and cast to the deep run/pool upstream and work it hard.  I could fish that one spot the rest of my life...... 

[Bucksnbows]

[Bucksnbows]

One of the most epic battles I have ever witnessed.....at least a 15 lb lake trout which remains a leviathan of the deep.  Despite Rick and his guide Patrick's finest efforts during a squall that included lightening, this fish finally broke off.  Patrick simply couldn't see the fish to net it with the deluge we got hit with as the fish got close to them both.  This battle began when it was barely raining, but that very quickly changed as you will see.  Poor Rick never had a chance to put on his rain gear.  That's hail in the final photo and that's an 8 weight fly rod doubled over.  Rick knows how to put the screws to a big fish!   

  

[Live to Hunt]

What’s your story with the Caribou?? 

[Bucksnbows]

23 minutes ago, Live to Hunt said:

What’s your story with the Caribou?? 

Apparently, various factors.  But suffice to say that having everyone able to shoot two trophy bulls with nearly unlimited checks on cow harvest and subsistence harvest and having the two Canadian Provinces of Quebec and Labrador not agree led to a 96% reduction in the herd of what was once 900K animals, now 15K.  Both Provinces have shut down all caribou hunting and it will likely be down for decades to come.  Just the one small outfitter airline that we used told us they averaged 5,000 hunters a year and most came back with 2 animals.  That's just one single float plane company with 2 Dehavilland turbo Otters.  How can you shoot that many every year, year after year, and expect the herd to thrive?    

[Live to Hunt]

I can’t believe it’s at 15,000.  Last I heard it was 350,000 maybe that number came from those who didn’t want it shut down. 

[MGHunter66]

Awesome Brian, thanks for sharing


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