Northwest Territories – Giant Pike in Absolute Wilderness

The Northwest Territories are among the wildest places on the planet—and perhaps also among the places with the highest concentration of pike anywhere in the world. The fishing we experienced on Great Slave Lake was nothing short of extraordinary.

Here, the setup is simple and brutally effective: a #10 rod, an intermediate fly line, and four extremely durable flies. I say durable for a reason. The number of bites your flies will take in a single day is something you can hardly imagine until you experience it yourself. Flies are constantly attacked, crushed, and shredded.

I still remember, as if it were yesterday, arriving on a small weed bed measuring roughly 22 by 22 yards. In just four casts, I landed four fish. The smallest one measured 42 inches. Numbers like that don’t belong to statistics—they belong to dreams.

This is raw, visual, aggressive fishing. Pike appear from nowhere, explode on the fly, and test every component of your gear. The fights are powerful, uncompromising, and deeply physical.

It was truly absurd fishing, in the best possible way, set in one of the most incredible and remote places I have ever seen in my life. A place where nature dominates, distances are measured in silence, and every fish feels like it comes from another era.