We got up early and headed back home to New Hampshire. Just north of Quebec City, we stopped at the waterfalls called Chute-Montmorency. These falls are impressive to see and if you get there early enough you can avoid having to pay the fee to get in.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable trip. We saw a lot of great scenery, two moose, one wolf, and caught lots of fish. We were already planning our 2017 trip on our ride home. If you were ever planning on traveling to the area we visited and have any questions, feel free to comment on this blog and I would be happy to help. Stay tuned for our blog of our 2017 trip back to The Big Land.
On our ride back to the States from Labrador City, we came across this wolf in Northern Quebec. We were somewhere between Fire Lake and Gagnon. This is the third wolf my father has seen on his trips to Labrador throughout the years, and my first.
Sorry for the shakey video, the car was moving and I didn't want to miss getting this video.
We drove from Labrador City all the way to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, which was about 14 hours. We got a hotel room and went to see and take pictures of Saint Anne's well known church.
We stayed at Motel Joanne for the night. Each time we stayed here the owners were great to deal with and for the price it was worth it. We paid a little less than $100 Canadian. The exchange rate from the American dollar to the Canadian dollar was better this year than last year. It was +28 cents on the dollar.
This was our last day of our trip in Labrador City. We decided to spend the first half of the day fishing at our most productive spots. We drove into the Dolomite Bridge to start the day. My father caught these two "twin" lake trout within the first hour.
On our way back into town, we had to stop a The Narrows for one last try. On my first cast I caught this nice 5 pound laker.
We decided to end our fishing on this high note. We spent the afternoon visiting with family and friends and got ready for our trip back to the States.
We decided to spend the day Geocaching around Labrador City and the Wabush area. Overall, the weather was decent. There were a few quick passing showers. The black flies in the bush were thick but we had our Thermacells which kept them at bay for the most part.
We searched for over a dozen Geocaches. Some were definitely harder to find than others, and some we never found. We brought with us an ammo can to put out our own Geocache for others to find. Inside we put a trackable coin, a log book, a first to find button, and a couple other trinkets. Here is the link to my Geocache: Off The Beaten Path
This is us pointing to the hidden cache. If you like hiking and treasure hunting, then you should try Geocaching. It's a lot of fun to do with friends and family. Go to geocaching.com to learn more about this.
We started our eighth day at The Narrows. Once again, this place didn't let us down. I caught my biggest laker of the trip. This was an ol' fella, weighing in at a little over 8 pounds. You can see his top jaw is starting to hook and he had a silver color to him. It almost looked like it was a hybrid of a lake trout and a ouananiche, if that is possible. More likely it was an old lake trout.
Later on in the morning, we went out on Shaboogamoo Lake in a small boat. We trolled for two hours and Rich caught this beautiful colored lake trout weighing in at 5.75 pounds.
On the seventh day of our trip, we decided to fish from sunrise to sunset. Our first stop was at the closed bridge on the back side of Wabush Lake. We arrived at the bridge a little before 6 a.m. and shortly after I caught a lake trout followed by my dad catching a splake. A splake is a cross between a lake trout and a brook trout. It was a calm and crisp morning. There wasn't a ripple on the water and the loons were calling and diving all over the lake. We saw an osprey fishing as well. The past couple mornings the temperatures were below 40 degrees F. A winter hat and long sleeves were a must. If you're planning a trip like this, pack your bags accordingly and be prepared for any type of weather.
Our next stop was Sandy Point on Wabush Lake. The previous year we had luck here and caught several lake trout. This year the water levels in the lakes were higher than normal and we were catching lake trout where we had caught pike in the past. As previously stated, the pike were not in their normal spots. We weren't sure if this was because of the higher water levels or not.
After a hearty Newfie breakfast at a local family restaurant, we continued to fish and stopped at Jean Lake again. This time around, we each caught a sucker. There was a school of them in the deep pool and they ended up being a bigger challenge to catch than the lake trout we were catching.
After this, we decided to head north on the Route 500 (the Trans-Labrador Highway) to the Ashuanipi River. This is a well known river among the locals and there are a lot of fishing camps up and down the river. We traveled up river but couldn't find a good place to access the river and fish. We decided to head downstream where we found good access. This is the one time we wished we had a boat or canoe.
On our way back south, we stopped on this causeway along Shaboogamoo Lake. We saw schools of brook trout chasing bait fish near the rocks of the causeway. This is where we decided that on our next trip a shiner trap is a necessity.
We stopped at the closed IOC bridge again and I caught this lake trout near sunset.
Shortly after turning back onto Route 500, we came across another young bull moose feeding. We ended up watching him for twenty minutes as the sun set. What a great end to a perfect day.
This day, we decided to venture further out of Labrador City. We took some back roads to the back side of Wabush Lake where it narrows. There was a closed access bridge that went to the IOC mine that we fished around. We heard about this spot from some locals who said they were catching big lake trout. This was another spot where we were always successful in catching fish. Within the first half hour of arriving at this spot, my father and I caught these two lake trout.
On our way back into Labrador City, we decided to stop at our honey hole (The Narrows). In no time I reeled in this 5.5 pound lake trout. These fish put up a heck of a fight. The water is clear and cold and these fish aren't found too deep and were all able to be caught from the shoreline.
Next we decided to head south out of town to the Walsh River. The views were spectacular and the water was clear. We could see a number of different size brook trout and ouananiche (landlocked salmon) following our lures and worms. Unfortunately we weren't able to entice a bite. We decided that on our next trap to bring our shiner trap and try our luck with live bait. There were tons of bait fish in the water.
