The American West is full of big tailwaters. From the Green to the San Juan, trophy trout rivers beckon anglers every season. But the South Fork of the Snake River is different. It’s big and sweeping and, especially for a tailwater, it remains wild and wonderful. And it’s fishy all season long, from the lip of the dam at Palisades Reservoir until it joins the Henry’s Fork near the little town of Menan some 40 miles downstream. 

The middle section of Rio Blanco is some of the most untouched water in all of Patagonia. The lower reaches of the Blanco, near its confluence with Rio Aysén and mere miles from where the river dumps into the Pacific Ocean, can be reached via both an unimproved dirt road and by upstream jetboat—until powerful waterfalls and class IV rapids block your way. And, the first few miles downstream of the river's origin can be accessed by portaging across a massive lake and hiking downriver before an impassible canyon halts your progress.

Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of the South American continent, is the southernmost land mass on the planet, with the exception of Antarctica. Though the archipelago's southern and westernmost reaches are mountainous and wet, Tierra del Fuego's largest island and eastern half is covered mostly by arid plains whose enchanting, austere landscapes are sparsely inhabited.

Every flats angler knows about the bonefish of the Bahamas that cruise the white sand flats from Abaco and Andros to the far-flung family islands of Exuma and Mayaguana. But permit fishing can be a hit-and-miss proposition in the Bahamas — certainly, some cays and islands are home to bigger populations than others. But, the little-known stretch of reefs and cays known as the Berry Islands — home to one single fly fishing lodge — is emerging as the permit destination in the Caribbean.

Anglers plying the waters of the Rocky Mountain West often fantasize about what it would have been like to fish the trout-choked rivers in Montana, Idaho, Montana and Colorado a century ago or more — long before throngs of solitude-seeking transplants descended on those places. While those days are long gone for the American West, the good news is they are alive and well on the other side of the globe.