Slaying Dragons: Canada’s Giant Northern Pike

Northern pike grow to unthinkable sizes in the remote waters of northern Canada's Mackenzie River.

By Charlie Levine

November 11, 2024

Standing on the floating dock outside Brabant Lodge, I’m closer to the Arctic Circle than I am to the nearest movie theater.

North of the 60th parallel in the Northwest Territories of Canada, I’m about as far outside my fishing comfort zone as I’ve ever been. It took two days of travel to get to this remote stretch of the Mackenzie River on the outflow of Great Slave Lake. I’m not here to see the northern lights, though; I’m here to catch northern pike.

I missed a half-day of fishing due to a canceled flight in Toronto. To get to Brabant from Florida requires four or more flights. You must first get to Yellowknife, where you spend the night, then fly to the small town of Hay River the next morning. Here, you pick up an amphibian turboprop that brings you out to the lodge for a water landing.

I was the lone guest on the flight to the lodge. Just me and a pallet of beer — Molsen and Alexander Keith’s India pale ale, which is more of a lager than an IPA. The other anglers were out on Beaver Lake, tangling with giants. I arrived at 11 a.m. or so, splashing down softly and taxiing to the floating dock. I ate lunch with Peter Fox, who began guiding here in 2016 and now, at 29 years old, owns the lodge with his family. We had a nice salad with poached shrimp and a lemon vinaigrette. It was the best thing I’d eaten since leaving Florida.

After lunch, Fox had some errands to tend to, so I strolled down to the dock. A friend of the family named Pavlos and the chef, Cobey Adams, were fishing. I didn’t know what to throw, so I snapped a small crankbait I brought to a cable leader that could easily be used for shark fishing. I landed a fish on my third cast. It was the first pike I’d ever caught, but a mere snack compared to the main course I was about to feast on.

The jaws on these beasts are no joke, and when I got it to the dock, I was glad Pavlos was there. He had long, needle-nose pliers to reach into the barracuda-like jaws and pop the lure free. I was going to try a topwater when Pavlos suggested I use one of his Johnson spoons. The silver spoon was the ticket. It’s nice when a lure designed 100 years ago still works. I caught a dozen or so fish from the dock, including another first for me, a walleye, which we harvested.

Targeting Northern Pike in Canada’s Northwest Territories

While researching the best locations for northern pike, I kept landing on the Brabant website. I reached out and spoke to Fox, who took over the lodge in 2023. Fox wasted no time mincing words, promising me hundreds of fish and giant ones at that. “It’s basically impossible to oversell this place,” he says. “The crazy stuff we see, the number of fish we catch, and the big ones.”

This area is known as the Lowlands. The ground is spongy and resembles as much when flying over it, with lots of pockets of water surrounded by squishy peat moss covered in greenery and black spruce trees. The water was 56 degrees but varies a bit depending on where you go. During winter, the ice here gets 4 feet thick. They run ice roads across Great Slave Lake to deliver supplies to remote areas and diamond mines, returning with cargo.

Brabant opened in 1967 and was run by Ellen and John Pollard for more than 45 years. It has a staff of 10 and five guides. The owners limit the number of boats they fish by choice. Right now they can accommodate 12 guests per week and may grow it to 16. Two anglers fish with one guide on Lund 1800 Alaskan aluminum boats with 50-hp, tiller-handle Honda outboards.

The daily fishing schedule is ambitious. The sun never really sets up here during the summer, and they take advantage of the daylight. Breakfast is at 7 o’clock, and you leave the dock at 8 to make the 40-minute run to Beaver Lake, where you fish till about 4:15. They don’t do shore lunches; you eat in the boat. “We’re here to catch big fish, not go on shore to eat small fish. That’s a total waste of time,” Fox says. Boats get back to the lodge around 5 p.m. for drinks and apps with a side of fish chatter. Dinner is at 6. The evening fishing session is from 7 to 10. The self-serve bar is open till 11.

Andrew Fox, Peter’s dad, showed me to my cabin. He’s a financial planner who comes to the lodge for a few weeks each summer. There are several cabins on the island, each named after a species of fish. I stayed in Arctic Grayling, which is split into a duplex. Each side of the cabin has two comfy beds, a wood stove, a front porch and a bathroom with water as hot as the deepest barrels of hell that comes out with the force of a pressure washer. Not that I was complaining. It was great for washing the sand flies out of my goatee.

While it’s wildly remote at Brabant, you don’t feel it. There’s Starlink Wi-Fi in the main lodge building, where the dining room, kitchen and sitting area are located. A long line of windows offers views of the moving waters and boats. Your phone will ping with notifications, if you choose to stay connected.

Fox walked down the dock holding 9-foot muskie rods with long butt sections that help you get more leverage on these beastly animals. I had brought two 3000-size baitcasters and a spinning reel. We boarded one of the boats and headed out to the other side of the island to a deep hole surrounded by shallow water. Fox lifted the outboard a bit to idle into the spot. I had scored several lures and spinner baits from Savage Gear and was fishing an articulated lure that resembles a baby pike. A big fish demolished it on the first cast, pushing a wake as it came up behind the lure and unleashed a death blow that threw water. The pike’s No. 1 predator is other pike.

Fox uses a net the size of a hula hoop to scoop up big pike and hold them beside the boat so he can safely unhook the lure, hoist the fish for a few photos and release it. The pike wriggled in the net like an eel as wide as a four-by-four piece of lumber, its mouth clamped shut on the lure with a force similar to that of an alligator. Fox used a forceps to hold the fish’s mouth open to unhook the lure, which had two debarbed trebles. We removed the tail hook to make life easier on the guide and the fish. Big pike tend to aim for the eyes of their prey, T-boning them like an arrow.

“Set the hook as hard as possible,” Fox says. “You won’t hurt these fish. They’re not some little, docile dog. They’re mean, mean fish. They’re excited to jump on the hook and give you a real ride.”

You can’t make a bad cast here. You will get strikes from all directions, even alongside the boat. You can’t leave a lure in the water, either. They’ll hammer anything shiny — even if it’s not moving — a lesson I learned while trying to take a photo with my phone. I almost lost the phone and the rod.

Northern pike clobber everything with a ferocity you don’t get used to. They are not line shy. They are not boat shy. They are the opposite of shy; they are extremely forward and aggressive. The best bites are a foot or so off the gunwale. You know it might happen, you get plenty of follows, but you still jump and yell like a kid when a pike the size of a man’s leg explodes on a lure right next to you. Summer here is short-lived, and the fish need to pack on as much bulk as possible. They don’t waste time. The main food source is a lake herring called cisco.

Decent-size pike are called gators, Fox tells me, and the big ones are called dragons. I have a thing for dragons. They are smart, loyal and strong. I have a tattoo of one on my arm. In the Midwest, a trophy pike is anything north of 20 pounds. Landing one is akin to catching a 10-pound largemouth or a 50-pound striper. We set a goal to catch two fish over 20 pounds each day. There hasn’t been a day without four big fish to the boat all summer I’m told. “It’s always big-fish o’clock,” Fox says.

After dinner, we depart for Beaver Lake, which is really a wide section of the river. This is monster pike territory. The catching is nonstop — bite after bite. They chow on everything we throw: swim jigs, spoons, flies, spinnerbaits, you name it. Just as Fox predicted, I lose count of how many pike I catch, but I do remember landing fish on 12 successive casts. I can confidently say I caught more than 100 fish, even though I missed the morning session. And the quality of the fish is unrivaled. We land two 20-pounders — one that scaled out at 21 pounds, 10 ounces, the other one 24 pounds, caught on the last cast. It measured 43 inches, big enough to ride the roller coasters at Six Flags.

Beaver Lake Giant Pike

I wake up with sore ribs from using my chest as leverage with the long rods. It’s a good kind of sore. We have a veggie egg hash and three-berry muffins for breakfast. We run straight to Beaver Lake in clear conditions. The late-June morning air is chilly, and I’m wearing every piece of clothing I brought: a Simms puffy jacket over a hoodie, Challenger bibs and raincoat.

We slow down by a long patch of thick weed, where big pike live and hunt. I wonder what it looks like below the surface — there must be thousands of fish. Fox engages the Garmin trolling motor’s anchor function, and we hammer the weedline with jigs, topwater lures and flies. It all works.

I’m having fun fishing topwater; the pike hammer them like pugilists throwing haymakers. After a dozen fish, I decide to the give the fly rod a go. The 11-weight Sage Payload has a Lamson Lightspeed Series IV reel and floating, cold-water fly line. I’m fishing a 20-pound tippet, 40-pound butt section and 40-pound wire shock tippet. I drop a purple, Clouser-style fly with dumbbell eyes on the edge of the weeds and hook a nice pike. The fish takes the fly even with bits of weed on it. These predators don’t mind a little roughage with a meal. I yank the fly line as hard as possible to set the hook. The fish dives as I work it close to the boat. Suddenly, it goes berserk on the leader, spinning like an alligator doing a death roll. Fox nets the pike — 18 pounds, 14 ounces.

The action continues all day. When we hit brief lulls, we slide down to a fresh patch of water and change to a new lure or color. The takes next to the boat are the best. Pike can kick up a huge splash like a slalom water skier. Back on conventional gear, I flip a swimbait to a fish by the boat that had followed Fox’s bait, and in a blink, it destroys the Warbait jig and tries to swim to the depths. The nonstop action is addictive.

Sand flies are now hatching in swarms. They don’t bite, but they climb up your pant legs and down your shirt neck. I pull a buff over my nose and mouth to keep from inhaling them. The day has warmed, and I shed my layers down to a long-sleeve shirt. We take a quick boat ride to cool off and debug.

I land another dragon at 2 p.m., punching pockets in the weeds with a heavy swimbait. The fish is massive, as long as an 8-year-old kid is tall. It has a wide, flat mouth almost like Daffy Duck. It weighs 23 pounds, 10 ounces, our fifth over 20 pounds for the day.

Back at the lodge, I chat with the other guests. “I was on the struggle bus today, and I still managed to catch my personal best,” says Tom Fox, an electrician from Wisconsin, who is not related to the lodge owners.

All of the guests are from the States. Allison Lewis and her dad, Paul, are back after a trip they took 20 years ago, when they came for Allison’s high school graduation. They are fly-fishing and putting up solid numbers. “We go on a fishing trip every year,” she tells me, “but they aren’t all as fast-paced as this one.”

Dr. Robin Crandall, a retired orthopedic surgeon, is here with his son Ross, who just graduated from medical school. It’s Robin’s fourth trip to Brabant, but he hasn’t been here since 1988. The pair caught nine fish over 20 pounds in a single day. “The good old days are now,” the elder Crandall says. “Thirty years ago, you may catch four or five fish over 20 pounds in five days of fishing.”

Tom Fox and his buddy Cory VandeWettering are on their second trip. The fishing on the first go-around left them speechless and “gobsmacked,” VandeWettering says. “Brabant is geared toward fish folk who want lots of big fish — that’s our focus.”

World-Record Northern Pike

I’ve never seen myself as a world-record seeker, but I did notice a few vacancies in the IGFA record book that looked approachable. I’m a serious angler but view fishing more as an escape. Whether I slip away for a day or an hour, it doesn’t matter. Record-seekers tend to push it to an extreme. I don’t spend hours testing knots and line to determine their breaking strength. I admire those who do, but that’s not me.

That being said, Fox and I went searching for grayling after dinner. It was a pleasant evening, but the fishing was quiet compared with the day’s action. I was casting an old lure Fox found at the lodge called a Lil Humr (yes, we made plenty of jokes about that). I sipped a beer and casually fished the bright pink, micro crankbait till I finally hooked a fish. The fight was diminutive compared with the pugnacious pike. We measured the grayling on an official IGFA ruler —
49 centimeters, the new, unofficial world record. Go figure.

The next day, we woke up to a haze caused by smoke from a controlled burn. There was no wind and clouds of sand flies. My body was spent, my enthusiasm diminished. I needed a few boat-side bites to fire me up. The pike did not disappoint. I fished a Savage topwater with a tail that spins in the water like a prop. Watching the pike destroy the lure was a blast. These fish are like something cooked up by a weapons manufacturer. Heat-seeking torpedoes.

Fox fished the fly rod and put up just as many fish as I did on conventional. He landed a 23-pounder to break the IGFA length record on fly. It was a big deal for him and the lodge. Another goal accomplished.

The way these fish look at you from the net is menacing. They size you up, calculating their next attack. I had a crazy bite on the spoon at the end of the day, fluttering it over weed patches and letting it fall into open holes. A fish pounded the silver spoon as I skipped it along the surface. These bites are so visual, it’s hard not to get excited.

My biggest fish was my last one of the trip. I was fishing a homemade plastic frog that we use to catch snakehead in Florida. Watching the legs of the lure kick away was too enticing for a pike I spotted lazing on the surface, its orange tail fin poking out of the water. I made a cast, but the frog flew left, and the fish didn’t move. My second cast landed in front of the big pike, and she charged, turned around and sucked the frog down pointed right at the boat, so I could see the whole interaction.

You miss a lot of fish on topwater, but this one stayed stuck. The fight was short. I held the rod tight, the drag locked down. We weighed it in the boat: 24 pounds, 4 ounces. Hoisting the pike for a photo, the fish stretched from my chin to below my knees. An incredible catch and the highlight of an unreal trip. Yes, the logistics of getting here are a bit of a pain, but it’s the price you pay to slay a few dragons.