The United States can boast of record-setting catches and has every type of fishing invented--from surf-casting off Cape Cod or Cape Hatteras to flicking a fly in Maine or Montana.

Fly-fishing camps are as prolific as fish in the Maine woods. Grant's Kennebago Camps in Oquossoc has 18 of them, built on Kennebago Lake in 1905. Over in Vermont, Orvis (tel. 800/548-9548) runs one of the top fly-fishing schools in the country. See chapter 3 for more on New England fishing.

The nation's other great fly-fishing area is in the Montana and Wyoming mountains near Yellowstone National Park, made famous by A River Runs Through It. The top river out here is Montana's Madison, with headquarters starting in the park, but cutthroat trout make the Snake River over in Wyoming almost as good--and the resort of Jackson Hole offers luxury relief within casting distance.

Most ports along the nation's seaboards have deep-sea charter-fishing fleets and less expensive party boats (all you have to do is show up for the latter). The best tropical strikes are in the Florida Keys and off the Kona coast of the Big Island in Hawaii. Florida's southwest coast is noted for fighting snook and tarpon. Alaska is famous for summertime salmon and halibut fishing, with the biggest in the Kenai River and on Kodiak Island, which has the state's best roadside salmon fishing.