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Subscriber Paul Magovern cannot say enough good things about his Atlantic salmon trip to Flowers River Lodge (www.flowersriver.com) in Newfoundland, Canada, last July 31 to August 7. He booked the trip directly with lodge owner Jim Burton ([email protected]) and calls him a “straight-shooting, honest guy. He runs a great operation. Great cooks, knowledgeable guides, and most importantly, his river has fish!”
Indeed, the Flowers River does have fish. In five days of fishing, Magovern says he had 20 hookups, about two-thirds of which led to landed fish. “My biggest landed salmon was in the 18-pound range,” he writes, noting he tied into (but lost) a behemoth his first day that probably weighed 20 pounds. “Most landed fish were in the 14- to 18-pound range,” he continues. “I hooked only a handful of grilse.”
Magovern says the fishing at Flowers Lodge was done wading, with transportation up and down the river in an outboard-powered canoe. He says he fished with a nine-foot, 9-wt. Powell rod
with an Abel Super 8 reel. The best flies were No. 4 to 6 tangerine bomber/bugs with natural deer-hair bodies and tangerine orange hackle, No. 8 Undertakers, and No. 8 Blue Charms. He says there were no actual problems to deal with on the trip other than the usual bug problems you
find in Newfoundland and Labrador in the summer caused by black flies, stouts, and mosquitoes. “Bring repellent with lots of DEET and more cigars than you think you could ever possibly smoke,” he suggests.
Magovern calls his trip great overall. “I had three hookups right in a row one evening,” he writes. “The high point of the trip, though, was making a solid doublehaul cast to a fish we had seen jumping and getting a vicious take on a bomber.” He gives the cost of the trip as $6,000 Canadian, noting that includes the cost of float plane service into the lodge. He concludes that he would definitely recommend this trip to fellow subscribers.