The lure of Alaska and British Columbia never fails as a draw for fly-fishers from around the world. It's a powerful draw. Many people return every year and fight crowds for the chance of hooking a steelhead or Pacific Salmon. The most incredible story I ever hear was of 260 who snuggled up practically elbow to elbow to share a small section of a river. The story even made the newspapers. 
I've fished Alaska and British Columbia -in quieter places and with great success - but the spell never took hold for me. It's the Yukon that has captured my heart. The fishing pressure is light, which part of its frontier allure. But it still offers big challenges. To my Dutch eyes, it also appears that fly-fishing is a relatively new sport for this territory. People here seem to prefer lake fishing to river fishing and many of the flyfishers I met came from abroad. 
One of the greatest challenges I first encountered in the Yukon was that of catching the plentiful, yet exlusive species of whitefish. Over the years, my passion for grayling in Europe put me in frequent contact with whitefish. Eventually, I developed an interest in them too, and, later, discovered several tips and techniques for landing a healthy of percentage of these spirited fighters. 
Some of the whitefish in Yukon behave differently than the whitefish in Europe, but the general attitude toward them remains the same: they can be extremely difficult to catch. Part of the challenge for the angler lies in the small and soft mouths of the fish. But they seem to be easier to take in some lakes and rivers. In others, such as the Yukon's Dogpack and Tin Cup. 

I was told the task was nearly impossible in these areas if you fished with flies. I was told my efforts would be useless. But I saw this only as a challenge. It took several days and two trips to Yukon before I developed a successful technique. After discovering fly patterns that worked, I found I was able to tempt the fish. I had less success landing them, until I reached back to an old trick of using small, curved hooks. It worked like a charm and my wife I enjoyed several days of excellent whitefishing. 
About this time, I became captivated by a particular species of whitefish known as the inconnu. I first heard of these sleek and silvery cousins of lake and round whitefish while visiting Inconnu Lodge on McEvoy Lake in the southeastern region of the Yukon. It was the sight two mounted trophies on display in the lodge that wet my appetite. Inconnu - the name comes from the French word for 'unknown' - frequently weigh at two-and-half kilograms to four-and-a-half kilograms, but they can grow much bigger. The record at Inconnu Lodge stands just shy of 15 kilograms. 
Eaters of minnows, ciscos and salmon fry, anglers typically go after inconnu with slive spoons and other lures that imitate small fish. I was determined to fish for them with flies. I got my chance on my fourth day at Inconnu Lodge. We had left the lake for some moving water and, within an hour, I had hooked on fish but lost it when it reached the surface of the lake. I don't normally blame my equipment for fish losses but I made an exception. I was using a borrowed fly that looked old to me. And I was sure the wire the hook was too thick to play the fish properly. My luck didn't change for the rest of the day. 

When I went back to Europe, I was determined to return to the Yukon and catch inconnu. I devoted the winter to developing fly patterns I was convinced would work. My wife, Ina, and I came back the next summer for a visit to Tin Cup Lodge, which nestles at foot of the Yukon's St. Elias mountain range near Kluane National Park Tin Cup encourages experimental fishing and Larry Naggy - a geologist and partner in the business - was up for my challenge. No one had ever caught inconnu on flies at Tin Cup before. Initially, Larry led us to several excellent spots and we enjoyed terrific fishing - although not for inconnu. We were saving that for later.  
One of the wonderful things at Tin Cup was that everybody respected my experiments and because of my successes I was able to catch several species that seemed impossible to hook and land before. I found some remarkable hotspots for catching whitefish on little nymphs and by teaching my techniques to others it increased the fly fishing possibilities at Tin Cup enormously.  
When our inconnu day finally arrived, I was feeling good. I had determined that we would need to tempt for the fish up from the bottom and searching for their feeding dept. Other guests at the lodge had caught four inconnu that week and I was confident the fly patterns I had developed over the winter would do their job. Because heavy spoons caught all fish I knew we have to present our flies deep. Our special Quick Decent sinktip fly lines makes it even possible to search for the fish at depths around 4 metres and even more.  
I decided to use a 325 grain sinktip line, for Larry I set up a brand new rod with a 425 grain sinktip and Ina uses a light rod with only 225 grain sinktip. All our sinking tips were 24 ft so a perfect length to search for the inconnu at several depths. I discussed the fishing technique with Larry and Ina again. To reach some depth you have to shoot your line quite some distance and let it sink first. You wait 60-80 seconds first and then you start to pull in your line with different retrieving speeds. When everybody knew exactly what to do and when all our equipment was checked again we flew out to our secret inconnu place.  
We took the jetboat and Larry gives us a wonderful sightseeing tour to start with. I don’t like it to fish with more then two people from boat so we also prepared a belly boat. They drop me on shore and I quickly paddle to some good-looking spots. Ina and Larry fished from the boat.