OUTDOOR PURSUITS ©
OUTDOOR PURSUITS © HAWKS CAY RESORT © RIFFLIN’ HITCH LODGE © BIG CEDAR LODGE WATER WORKS Clockwise from top: Hawks Cay Resort; Rifflin’ Hitch Lodge, Canada; Big Cedar Lodge Facing page: Steamboat Bay Fishing Club bigeye tuna, albacore, wahoo, red snappers, barracuda and more. After fishing, enjoy the island’s namesake fortified wines and exquisite cuisine. The historic luxury hotel sits on the same harbour in Funchal as the charter sportfishing fleet. After billfish, salmon are probably the quarry more anglers make bucket-list trips for than any others, and the biggest, the king salmon (also known as chinook), is practically synonymous with Alaska. For this reason, despite a short summer season, Alaska is full of destination salmon lodges, none swankier than Steamboat Bay Fishing Club (steamboatbay.com). It’s operated like a toptier African safari lodge, with a private boat and captain for each of the ten lodge rooms or the eight-person residence, and all meals, wines, top-shelf drinks, fish processing to take home, and seaplane transfers from Ketchikan are included. Cabin cruisers are custom made for the region, with full bathrooms, heated cabins, and stable rides with shock absorber seats. It’s hard not to catch your king salmon daily limits here, along with big halibut, cod, rockfish and silver (coho) salmon. In Alaska, Pacific salmon are commonly caught in deep water with conventional saltwater tackle, but Atlantic salmon are also one the biggest prizes for avid flyfishing junkies, and for that it is hard to beat remote and luxurious Rifflin’ Hitch Lodge (rifflinhitchlodge.com) on the famed Eagle River in Canada’s Labrador. There are no roads here, and guests arrive in Goose Bay and are flown in by the Lodge’s A-Star 350 helicopters or Cessna Grand Caravans. Guests are also flown daily to angling hot spots, including Rifflin’s satellite day lodge in a National Park Preserve to fish for jumbo trout. The main event is trophy-sized Atlantic salmon, but anglers also land huge brook trout and Arctic char. All fishing is catch and release, but the food is gourmet and there is no shortage of the local specialties, along with fine wines. There are just seven suites and a ratio of one guide for every two guests, much better than industry standards. Iceland is world famous for its fly-fishing because of some unique policies. While it has many pristine lakes and some of the best sea trout, char, and salmon streams in the world, all fishing rights are privately owned and mostly leased to outfitters. This means fishing is severely limited on all the best waters, 48 NetJets
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