Canada

• How I was Hooked - Canada
• The City of Food, Fun & Fashion - Montreal
• Montreal and all that jazz - Montreal
• Welcome to Brollywood - Vancouver

IF THE HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE, Chris would save his fishing rods first. He always says he couldn’t live without his fishing rods, his kids and me - adding ‘but not necessarily in that order’ only when I thump him. Chris loves his family. I think he may even love me - but he’s besotted with fishing. It began when he received a rod from his grandfather on his fourth birthday, and caught his first perch in the Thames. Since then he has always fished.

Nothing is allowed to come between him and his one serious pastime, unless there are extremely good reasons. Imminent childbirth isn’t one. Two days before our first baby was due, Chris loaded his rods, baits and me into the car and drove to Wales, where I was installed in a hotel equidistant from the nearest hospital and the fishing lake. Luckily, Samantha arrived three days late and was born, as planned, at our local hospital. The Irish midwife was a fanatical angler.

As I pushed an 8lb 8oz girl into the world, Mary and Chris were talking about the time he landed a 30lb carp in Galway. I’m not keen on the muddy puddles where he goes carp or pike fishing, but his discovery of salmon fishing has meant I’ve had a few great trips with him to some of the most beautiful parts of Scotland, my native Norway and New Zealand. He’s out early and finishes late. Sometimes I join him, but mainly I chill out in the sun and catch up on lots of reading, then we’ve had fabulous dinners watching the sun go down.

Spiritual home

For the past few years, Chris has made trips to Canada with some mates. It has become a spiritual home for them. Chris raves about the country, the Canadians and the fantastic fishing. The guy responsible for introducing him to Canadian fishing is Martin Founds, who runs a small tour operation specialising in fishing holidays.

For the most recent trip, they were planning a boys-only jaunt to the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the west coast. They spent weeks drooling over brochures. But they sold it rather too well. The pictures were breathtaking and the girls decided that we would go too. ‘Oh, that’s great news darling,’ said Chris, through gritted teeth, while the others were doing the same at their homes. We flew to Vancouver, had supper there in a hotel by the harbour, then got up early to head for the islands, a hundred miles off the Pacific coast.

For the last hop we flew by helicopter over the mountains, still snowcapped in July, and spotted a huge bear lying on a rock looking up at us. It was the first of many we were to see that week.

Idyllic week fishing

We spent the rest of an idyllic week fishing, eating, drinking and spotting bears and eagles at two of the luxury lodges on Moresby Island. One was a brand-new one at Englefield Bay, the other a more established one at Tasu Sound. Both are accessible only by helicopter or seaplane and have miles of very remote fishing all to themselves. The seas around the lodges teem with fish. All the men, and a tough Polish woman, caught salmon. The seas are full of big salmon throughout the summer before they go up the rivers in the Vancouver area to spawn.

Most days the guys seemed to catch lots of fish. Chris and his friend Martin say it’s some of the best fishing on earth. Our English party caught huge salmon up to 45lb and one American caught the biggest salmon ever brought into the lodge. At 60lb it gleamed on the dock in the long shadows of a beautiful Canadian sunset.

The other huge fish of the week was caught by my husband. It was a colossal halibut, which must have weighed 200lb. But he didn’t want to kill it and, after a gruelling fight to bring it to the surface, he was happy to let it go back to the ocean alive.

The next afternoon we saw another one brought into the dock that weighed 216lb and both Chris and the guide in his boat were convinced that Chris’s fish was much bigger. The men were always up before dawn, into the boats and away. Martin’s wife, Jean, and my friend Linda and I took things rather more easily. In fact, for us mums it was wonderful. No kids to dress, no school run, we just floated down whenever we liked and had wonderful breakfasts, which we invariably sat outside to eat, taking big gulps of the clear, clean air.

Watching bears and eagles

The guides would take us out in the boats in the afternoon and although I was quite keen to catch my first salmon, I didn’t have the patience to sit bouncing around on the sometimes very rough Pacific for hours on end waiting for a bite. It was nicer in the quieter waters by the lodge, watching the bears and eagles, drinking wine and talking… until the men came home.

Talk then was of epic battles, fish that were landed and fish that were lost. Considering how remote the place is, food, wine and accommodation were superb.

The Queen Charlotte Islands consist of two major and several minor islands - the north one is Graham Island, the south one Moresby. Original inhabitants were the Haida Gwaii Indians, whose main reserve is on Moresby.

They settled around 5,000BC and were envied for their wonderful hunting and fishing. Seven thousand years later, nothing’s changed. Building is not allowed on Indian soil, so the lodges are tied to the bank by a complex system of ropes and chains. But they’re firm and solid. One morning there were humpback whales around one of the boats, dolphins were seen regularly and one afternoon a pod of orcas, killer whales, was spotted close to the lodge itself at Tasu. They had come close in to chase and kill seals, which had been fleeing the much more

Aggressive, larger sea lions out in the main Pacific.

One evening, two fishermen out in a boat hooked a large salmon when a huge male killer whale, well over 35ft long, grabbed their fish and bit it in two. The angler wound the remains of the salmon into the boat, only to see the huge head of the orca appear over the side. The other angler hit it on the head with an oar, much to the anger of the orca, which rammed the boat twice, almost capsizing it before it raced off clearly still in a rage.

They came in shaken, knowing they’d been lucky to get away unscathed. I never did catch a salmon, in spite of the seas being stiff with them. Women have a good record for catching good salmon, one theory being that female pheromones attract the aggressive spawning salmon. I did catch some fish, though. My first was a pathetically small ling cod which felt like a monster as I struggled to wind it in.

This poor, unfortunate little chap was then fed to a hungry bald eagle that swooped down from a cliff above us and picked it off the sea’s surface in its vicious looking talons. I missed what were apparently very good salmon bites through lack of experience, but did catch a red snapper which, although equally small, was taken back as my prize trophy. We cooked and shared it in admittedly tiny morsels between us before dinner.

So I made a start, had a fabulous seven days and am now determined to catch a salmon. The bad news, Mr Tarrant, is that I’ll keep coming again and again until I’m successful.