As the floatplane glided to a stop at the dock of British Columbia's Nimmo Bay Wilderness Resort, I succumbed to the view of a pristine bay surrounded by lush, evergreen hillsides. Immediately, I was greeted by a smiling young lady who unloaded my duffle and escorted me to my rustically elegant cabin, suspended high on pilings above the rocky beach. The first thing I noticed inside was the wall mount of a beautiful steelhead-a sea-run rainbow trout that in life must have weighed about 10 pounds. Yes, I was in the right place.

Nimmo Bay has a reputation as a most luxurious and exotic fishing lodge, a bucket-list sort of place for the outdoorsy, and that's what brought me here. I was fulfilling my fishing fantasy of roaming a virtually untouched wilderness in pursuit of Pacific salmon and steelhead—the stuff of a die-hard fisherman's dreams.