My first experience with Arctic Grayling in Saskatchewan occurred about 10 years ago when I was a relatively inexperienced fly fisherman. Ken Morton, a policeman from Saskatoon, and I went up to the Bow River near Lac La Ronge on the third weekend in September. We drove up Friday after work and set up his tent trailer in the dark in the campground beside the bridge. Luckily it had a propane heater, because it snowed heavily during the night. The next morning, after a hearty breakfast we donned our waders, grabbed our flyrods and headed upstream. The weather remained terrible the whole weekend with intermittent rain and snow.

In spite of the weather the small grayling took our size 16 Irresistable dry flies with great regularity. We kept four nine inchers for supper and found that they were tasty to eat as well as being fun to catch. From then on I was hooked on these small but mighty fish, and dreamed about being able to travel further north to catch them in their native streams and lakes.

The next summer Ken, my 9-year-old son, Brad and I were fishing for trout in the lakes just north of Lac La Ronge. We were looking for new waters to fish so we were browsing through the "stocked trout waters" bulletin and discovered that we were close to a lake which was stocked with Arctic Grayling. We drove up to Berna Lake and found it to be a pretty little lake in a deep gully on the opposite side of the road from McLennan Lake. Launching our canoe, we tied a peacock nymph to our sinking lines and proceeded to fish for grayling. Much to our surprise we started catching yearling rainbow trout. We didn't know that they had been stocked there the previous year to improve the quality of fishing in the lake. We fished hard and managed to catch two 19", 1 kg (2 lbs.) grayling in addition to our limit of rainbow trout.

Over the next two years we went back to Berna several times and finally discovered that by fishing deep with flies between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. we could consistently catch grayling from the lake. We talked to the camp operator at McLennan Lake and found that the people who fished with spinners rarely caught any grayling and that was why it was stocked with rainbow trout. We were gradually learning more about the habits of this beautiful fish, and I wanted more than ever to go to the far north to fish for grayling.

In the spring of 1981 I spotted an ad in the newspaper for a "fishing pro" for a fly-in fishing camp in northern Saskatchewan. I figured that it would be a good way to spend a summer. I was accepted for the job, and the day I finished teaching school for the year, I climbed aboard Norcanair's F-27 and headed north.

I was headed for Morberg's Camp on the Fond du Lac outlet of Black Lake. The flight lasted five hours with stops in Prince Albert, Lac La Ronge, Uranium City and finally, Stony Rapids. This was my first flight in the north, and after leaving Lac La Ronge all one could see below was water and trees. I was met at the airport in Stony Rapids by some of the staff who worked at Morberg's Camp. We traveled by truck about 25 km on a rough gravel road from the airport to the camp. It was hard to believe that I was finally in the "far north", only 80 km south of the North West Territories.
I quickly discovered that the Fond du Lac River between Black Lake and Stony Rapids has some of the best Arctic Grayling fishing in the world. I could take a boat over to an island in the river about 100 meters from the camp, and catch and release about 70 to 100 grayling in an evening. Most of them ran in the 1-kg range, but at least one an evening was in the 3 lb. to 31/2-lb range. These are truly trophy fish.

The more I fished for grayling, the more I learned about their habits and habitat. I quickly learned to use barbless hooks so that I could release the fish I caught without injuring them. They have very small mouths, and using barbed hooks made it very difficult to release the grayling without serious injury. Using a single barbless hook meant I could reach down and flip the hook out of their mouth without handling the fish, allowing it to swim away unharmed.