Joel Smith Photography: Day 5 in Yellowknife, North West Territories

Well day 5 came and went and man what a day.....My family and I went on a 8 hour fishing charter to into Great Slave with Blue Fish Charters out of the YK. Greg, Mike and Shawn were our guides for the day they were the best guys I have ever met and man do they know thier lake. Great Slave is the 9 largest fresh water lake in the world (depending who you ask) and they all know it like the back of their hands. We got packed up and headed out at 10ish which in this grew is early :) and we traveld for a very cold 26 miles to our sweet fishing hole. On the way out, Mike who was our guide for our boat along with Marc and Taylor slowed as we aproched just a massive ospreay nest just off the our boat cut the engine and just sat and watched the chicks and the maman protect her nest.

Then headed back out across a very large open bay were the wind was blowing right off the ice and man was the air cold out there after you got use to the open boat and the cold water spray against your back we came up on the first of a few bald egale's nest, as we cut the engine up above you heard the swosh of the massive wing span from the brid come to land on the smallest tip of a pine tree as her nest was only 15 feet away from her, and we were 100 feet away.

So after about an hour on the boat we made it to the bay we were going to fish for pike for the day, part of the plan was to go for Lake trout and pike but with the weather we had to stick to just pike. As we pulled in through a narrow channel a hunting cabin to the right and open up into a perfect bay for fishing pike. 59 degrees and only about 3 feet deep and light weeds. As Mike headed us down to the far end of the bay he got our lines in for us and within the first cast we had fish on our boat and it didn't stop till 2:30 when we headed into shore for a shore lunch which they cooked to perfection for us. Taylor said " wow this is the est fish I have ever tasted, I can't belive we caught this like 5 miniutes ago" and he proceded to eat as much fish as he could and I have ever saw him eat. Cold beans, frozen bread and fresh fish what more could you really ask for it is something you never forget and the cost is very very well worth it.

After lunch we got back into our boats and headed back our for another 2 hours of fishing things slowed down for marc and Taylor in the afternoon and picked up for me I had 9 casts and cought 8 fish with the last one spitting the hook within 2 feet of the boat, on my biggest of the day that weighed in at 13.9lbs should have been over 15lbs if it didn't spit out the fish it had just been eating as he took my lure. Anyway as the day went on the skys cleared up and it was beautiful, here are the rest of the photos from the day.

Oh one more thing, the first fish in our boat was from Taylor, the biggest was Marc at 15.8 lbs and the most well we tied, because we stopped counting after 25 each, we figured it out and on average we caught a fish ever 2 to 3 mins.