BEAST Mode

What if I told you there was a certain spot on a certain lake that swarmed with 20-30 pound rainbows?  Believe it or not… as you are reading this… they are out there.  What if I told you that I had witnessed pods of giant rainbows chasing baitfish and the smallest fish in the pod was 18 pounds or so?  Well… there is a place.

You have probably heard about the Lake Diefenbaker phenomenon, but let me tell you about it from my perspective.  I have traveled there twice in search of a 30 pounder.  I never got a 30, but I managed several fish over 20 and hooked a monster that pulled the hook that could have been a world record.

I remember the first time I saw a picture of the Conrad twins holding a 30 pound rainbow trout.  I thought the picture was photoshopped for sure.  But, after doing some research it appeared that these guys were legit and they were catching some giants on a regular basis.  How could this be?  Well, apparently there was a net pen on the lake that was torn by an iceberg and thousands of triploid rainbows were released into the lake.  They found a certain spot on the lake that had a lot of food and they gorged themselves day and night until they reached incredible sizes.  Nobody knew about this spot until the Conrad twins found out about it and started trying to dial it in.  They ended up setting many of the rainbow trout line class records… some which will stand for many years.

I was lucky enough to make contact with the twins and get an invitation to fish and film for one of my videos in the “monster trout” series.  It was an incredible trip, with multiple fish in the 25 pound range landed on film.  This place is amazing… a perfect storm that is truly once in a lifetime.  The crazy thing was that night fishing is allowed up in Canada and that is when these fish go on their feeding frenzies.  It was truly surreal to be sitting out in the middle of nowhere, at 2AM and set the hook into one of these giants.

These fish we so fat it was almost unbelievable.  I have seen lots of huge trout and have never seen anything like this before.  The forage that the rainbows eat are full of fat and very oily and this led to the rainbows extreme growth.  These were optimal growing conditions and you could not grow fish any bigger.  I caught one fish… I kid you not… that featured a girth that was approaching the length of the fish.  The sounds they made while chasing the forage sounded more like seals chasing sardines than trout chasing baitfish.

You can either cast lures or bait fish for these monsters… I have caught fish using both methods.  I tried all kinds of techniques, even sideplaners with plugs (from shore) … a technique that I have used very successfully for steelhead up in Oregon.  On the last night of the first trip to Diefenbaker I hooked a beast that scared the crap out of me.  I had landed a bunch of fish to 25 pounds so I their MO down.  This one fish though… it was on a whole different level.  It tore off line like a Bluefin tuna and stopped only to give BIG headshakes.  Lake Diefenbaker has periodic weed patches so I had my rod tip held high to keep the line elevated but the fish took out so much line I had no control.  The beast took me into a grass patch and the hook pulled.  I have no idea how big that fish was but I guarantee you it was an absolute monster.

If you want to give the monsters of Diefenbaker a shot… I heard a rumor that the Conrads are still offereing a few guided trips a season.  Check them out http://www.fishinggeeks.net/

Mark Knoch