The sun was down to the very tops of the softwoods on the hills that surrounded the lake. In the front of the boat, Joel was winding in his fly line, swapping out his Black Bear Green Butt for an even fatter dry fly. In the back, I had the five-horse in neutral and was doing the same. It was almost 8:30 PM; it was Bomber Time at Island Lake.
As far as fishing holes go, Island Lake, in the mountains of central New Brunswick, Canada, is not well-known outside the province. Once upon a time, the Cains River, the Miramichi and the Restigouche were known world-wide for their salmon runs; not so with Island Lake. It’s small and remote, with a single camp on the shore. Currently operating as H&H Island Lake Outfitters, founder Steve Harrison and his family have operated fishing camps in this area for a very long time; they had an eye for getting their outfitting businesses into good spots.
And for in-the-know fishermen in New Brunswick, Island Lake is a very good spot, because when you’re here, you’re only catching one species: native brook trout. Big native brook trout. Certainly not up to the standards of Labrador or northern Quebec, or even the sea-run smashers of Cape Breton Island or Prince Edward Island. But compared to the pan-sizers that dominate most New Brunswick creeks and lakes, Island Lake’s population is larger and much more plentiful. There are no smallmouth bass here, no chain pickerel, no fallfish. None of the species that have squeezed brookies out of the river systems in the province’s south have worked their way to this mountaintop lake, and none have been introduced.
It helps that a system of springs on the lake’s bottom keeps the water temperature cool, just how brook trout like it. Even on the hottest summer days up here, you can still catch fish, although you’ll probably do better if you show up in mid-spring.
That’s when we showed up in 2025, at the end of May, with eight of us. In-his-eighties Bill, who’d originally come to this lake with friends decades earlier. Bill’s son, Danny. Danny’s son, Daniel, and son-in-law Scott. And Ron, who was Bill and Danny’s long-time friend. Ron’s son Ty, son-in-law Joel, and I. A family affair, even though there were two different families here that weren’t technically related genetically or even through marriage; families that had been fast friends for many, many years, with a closer bond than many families’ begrudged blood ties.
We’d arrived in camp late Tuesday afternoon after driving about three hours of asphalt up from the Fundy coast, then another 45 minutes on Acadian Timber’s logging roads. Showing up at camp, we had the usual rush to offload the trucks. Sleeping bags and duffels onto the same beds that we chose every year, mostly because of their closeness to the woodstove or their distance from the loudest snorers. Coolers into the kitchen, fishing rods and tackle onto the cabin deck for quick rigging, then off in small tin and fiberglass boats for a couple of hours fishing before supper. With a three-night stay that everyone has been anticipating for months, everyone is keen to get their lines in the water and see how the catch would be this year.
Over pulled pork around 6 PM, the consensus was: the fishing was good. It was time to get right back out there, to fish until it was too late to see.
We mostly fish with flies at Island Lake, trolling them instead of casting. Bill likes it this way; with a floating fly line, you rarely get caught on bottom, even if you’re fishing a streamer. That first evening, I was keen to try a Maine-style tandem streamer, an articulated setup with a trailer hook. But once the sun got low, it was time for something else. Any time you passed another boat, trolling over the hot spots as the sky picked up a red-gold hue, you’d hear someone telling you: “It’s bomber time.” Once the skies get dark, it’s the fly of choice here at Island Lake.
Bombers are an Atlantic Salmon fly, usually first tied by Elmer Smith in the 1960s, and used all over the East Coast for big fish. Bill fished a lot of salmon when he was younger, and I expect that’s how he ended up trying them in Island Lake; he just picked them out of his existing fly collection on a whim. They don’t look like they would be a great choice in a lake like this, at least not for trout. They’re big and ugly and certainly don’t look like a mayfly. But when it’s dark out, they work like a topwater plug, creating a long V-wake as you troll them around the calm lake surface.
With fish rising in every direction, the bite was on, and Joel and I managed to get about a dozen decent-sized brookies into the boat as the sun vanished. They would be some of the hardest takers we had all trip, smashing those floating snacks off the surface, only to end up on a trip into the boat for a guesstimate on the length, and then a return to the lake.
We had a mixture of weather over the next couple of days; cloudy weather that drew fish to the surface, to be picked off by muddler minnows and other streamers. Hours of hot sun that drove them deep, convincing me to put the fly rod away and pull out an ultralight spinning rod, hauling in 12-incher after 12-incher on a Panther Martin. No other boats on the lake beside our party; no cell signal; no problem. Two fishermen per boat, and a different fishing partner each day.
In the evening, I fished with Bill, and we broke the code. We found a hole between two islands with fish stacked up. On pass-through after pass-through, we trolled muddlers instead of bombers, even as the sun set; on every run, we snagged a trout, mostly over 12 inches. It was the kind of fishing that makes you happy to drop everything and head into the woods for a few days, even if you’re a dad with piles of unfinished homesteading chores to get to, or an octogenarian who’s a long way from the comforts of home.
Bill and I finished the evening happy, with the best fishing either of us saw that year. We hadn’t seen any reason to change to our usual late-evening fly, with the bite on.
The next night, for whatever reason, the bite was off. I’d caught lots earlier in the day, but despite a bit of chop on the water—or maybe because of it—the trout wouldn’t touch anything we trolled. I was fishing with Daniel. We tried all the standard streamers, including my favorite tandems, and different dry flies. Nothing.
As the sun set on the last night of our trip, I cranked my old Medalist 1489DA in for one last time and said—I’m ending this trip how we started, with the bomber. And as the sun finally slipped behind the hills and a chilly wind starting to cut across the water, that white bomber with brown hackle was exactly what the trout wanted. A rise, a bite, a fish in the boat, and then another. Just as it looked like time was running out, the bite was on.
I looked at Daniel. He was cold; I was cold. Soon, we’d be dodging rocks and reefs on the way back to the camp; I could see well enough to avoid trouble, but that wouldn’t stop the others from worrying. Our party had caught more than 350 trout between us over the past two-and-a-half days (and kept less than 40 between the eight of us).
It was time to pack it in; we reeled in and cut back through the islands for the cabin’s woodstove and bunks. It was bomber time at Island Lake, but the good times always have to come to an end; with this trip ending on a high note, we’d be that much more motivated to come back next year and smash the brookies again.
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