I'ld like to get one more vacation in the books before I rejoin the ranks in a factory job late next spring, and won't have time anymore. Been giving some thought to Redfish in Louisiana or maybe "Steelhead" running up from the Great Lakes. The other option would be a guided float down the white river. It would be close enough to home to drive, and the money saved on the flight could probably pay for another full day of fishing.

Anybody want to share your dream trips, and your reason?

For a dream trip if one knows what he's doing and also knows the water, DIY. If not, then a guide responding to a thousand of your questions is the way to go. When I moved to the PNW, steelheading was new to me and uneventful for two seasons. One trip with a long term guide, and I'll catch them if they're there.

I'm with 1Minute on this one!

DIY is great, but if you're truly talking a DREAM trip I vote for a guide.

Kamchatka River. Reason? From what I read, it is the best fly fishing river in the world. Since you said "trips", I would ad my second choice as New Zealand. Reason? It looks absolutely beautiful and, I read, it too has excellent fly fishing? Finally, continuing with the "trips" theme, I have yet to hit all of the rivers in Montana. I've hit most. Reason, they are the only option on my list that are truly within reach unless I win the lottery or am befriended by someone who is wealthy and generous to a fault.

Marble Trout in Italy.

Edit to say: Why? because there are few places they are located and they are beautiful to me.

Backup trip would be Sea-Run Brown Trout in Newfoundland.

Both good choices for sure. Atlantic Salmon on dry flies in Newfoundland is on my list. When I've been up moose hunting one of my guides did a lot and said it can still be very good.

Brook trout somewhere in Labrador. It's the best you'll get for a shot to break the longest standing angling record of all time.

Dream trip would be guided on the Amazon for Peacocks on a fly. Now that my best fishing buddy (son) is making more money than me, the talks have gotten serious and hope to do it next year sometime.

would love to spend a week at Wildman Lodge on the Alaska Peninsula
https://wildmanlodge.com

My brother and I fished at Anne Marie Lodge years ago. Cooper's Minipi Camps. It was great. They advertised a 5 lb average on brookies. The way they arrived at that number though, was, they did not weigh fish under 3#, of which we caught a lot. My biggest was just over 5# and my brother's went over a bit over 6#. Great trip!

Damn near every Lake in this County has peacocks and some of them get pretty big.

Well, since you sort of mentioned it:

A couple-three days really learning English wet fly technique while fishing with Davy Wotten on the White River.

Not that I've used him as a guide, but watching his videos really has me intrigued. And for whatever reason, I just can't put it together well enough to have success with it on the local blue ribbon water.

If you like trout fishing, then the Missouri river tailwater will give you 30+ big fish per day.

But you need a guide with a boat.

It's pretty tough to do much anywhere of real significance as DIY unless you know the ins & outs of the place you intend to go. Evry type of fishing in every different locale has some kind of learning curve.

Paying a guide to get you where you need to be is worth it's weight in gold to take away the learning curve of where to be if you have time constraints, even if you are a great fisherman.

I've had 2 dream trips on my bucket list...........Tarpon & BC steehead. Accomplished the 1st, probably won't make the 2nd.

MM

Dream Trip:
Jurassic Lake Argentina!
Huge Rainbows, GREAT Food!
Caught a 24 pounder last Fall!
Do a search..........
Trip of a life time!

Guides, both hunting or fishing, are great when you can’t get something done on your own.

Access private land? Or deep water (deep sea fishing)? Need a boat? Need someone to teach you how to do something? All good reasons to consider guides. Probably more.

I wouldn’t pay for a guided trout trip, but that’s because I have the skill, equipment, etc for good trout fishing. And there are some big fish around!

But for instance I was stationed in Kansas for a year and we paid for a guide/boat for a day of crappie fishing with the kids. I didn’t have a boat and the kids and I love crappie. We caught a bunch of crappie, the kids had a blast. It was a great day and I would pay for it again in a heartbeat.

I would also consider a deep sea trip. No deep sea boat here, so I would have to pay for a charter or whatever.

[quote. Well, since you sort of mentioned it:

A couple-three days really learning English wet fly technique while fishing with Davy Wotten on the White River.

Not that I've used him as a guide, but watching his videos really has me intrigued. And for whatever reason, I just can't put it together well enough to have success with it on the local blue ribbon water. [/quote]


Been there and done this. Davy was a great guide and we caught a ton of fish using that technique. I had as many as 5 flies on at once and never tangled. Really interesting style of fishing. Davy has forgotten more about fly fishing and tying than most of us will ever know.

Probably Argentina. The prospect of giant Newfoundland Brook trout and Arctic Char while moose hunting is intriguing, provided the season is still in during hunting season. That would be some daily double.

I experienced fantastic brook trout fly fishing during an archery caribou hunt in NW Quebec in the 90's.

Back around '03 I did the same.. After we tagged out on two bulls apiece, we fished the rest of the week for huge Brookies and char. We would each put up $10 and the first guy to get a lure/fly back to the boat without a hookup won the pot. It was insane fishing. I would hope for a repeat on a Newfy moose hunt.

The Newfoundland fishing seasons close when hunting season opens. That being said, we did make some casts from the dock on our last trip but didn't catch anything. We would have done catch and release anyway but it was a fly-in camp so the risks of a mounty popping up was low.

Some of the best trips I've been on have been a mix. A day of guided drift boat fishing and a few more days of wandering lesser known waters in the area.

Laguna Verde was the lodge I stayed at... was very good, though we had incredible winds. Hard to fish in 100km winds.

I have gotten some incredible fishing on remote waters all over Alaska. I also guided on Kodiak for years.

Yes, it does get windy!

That is where a fast action rod helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afcg1H2MRN0

This is a good video.

This is where I stayed, just a short walk from fishing!

https://www.jurassiclake.com/

Did you fish right in the river mouth?

You could if you wanted to.

There was a highway of fish waiting to go up the river. You could fish the left or the right side of them. So that you didn't fowl hook them. Or you could go up stream a bit and sight fish.

On the far right side, you could wade out a bit and fish parallel to the shore. One day, every cast was a hook up, OK, some times I had to make three casts to hook one. Amazing!!!

It was early and cold, the fish bit in streaks, but when they were biting, just WOW!

It was Halloween day that I caught the 24 pounder, great fight.

Richard [another guest] caught the most beautiful 20 pounder, what a gorgeous fish!

I guided to pay for college. We fished flies for half pounders in the late summer and early fall, 13-15 inch juvenile steelhead for the most part with a few slightly larger, then switched to lures and bait for the adult winter steelhead. There was a summer run of adult fish but we never targeted them because there weren't enough to justify guiding and it was a busy time of year for gardening and preparation for the fall season which was our bread and butter. Though I have had customers catch big steelhead on flies, I've always been on the oars, not fishing.

Most of the flies I used guiding were flies my mom tied. She died in '92. I still have some of her flies.

I have many dreams but my "biggest" personal fly fishing dream is to catch my first big steelhead on a mom-tied "bug".

Tom

Pretty much agree, especially of you are fishing a new species like steelhead.

I fish the eastern shore Lake Michigan tributaries for both steelhead & salmon, & timing is crucial, as is various types of rigging & access to enough water to find fish, so you really, really need a guide.

I fish pretty exclusively with flies & there's more than 1 way to rig & fish, depending on the water, & the only way you learn that is with time or someone showing you.

And you need to book a guide very early, 9-12 months is not at all unusual.

If you decide to fish GL steelhead in Michigan, let me know if I can give you any more info.

MM