The Angler’s Year: From Bonefish Flats to Salmon Rivers

The finest fishing weeks are decided before the first cast: the water, the season and the house that waits at the end of the day. A great lodge keeps its guests to a small number, puts its guides on water few others reach, and makes the evening as considered as the morning. Choose the fish and the month first, then the house, and hold the peak weeks early.

Below are six houses from our Sportfishing & Adventure collection, from the bonefish flats of the Bahamas to the blue water of the South Pacific, the trout rivers of New Zealand and the far northern water of Alaska and Canada, and when each one fishes best.

Bair’s Lodge, South Andros, The Bahamas

Bair’s Lodge has been a saltwater classic since 1989: a refurbished plantation style house among coconut palms on a white sand beach on the east side of South Andros, between Deep Creek and Little Creek. Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas and one of the least developed, a low green country cut through by tidal creeks, and the sport here is sight fishing for bonefish, the grey ghost of the flats. It is a small house, never more than twelve anglers in seven rooms, with the skiffs moored a few steps from the veranda.

Seventeen foot Maverick skiffs leave the lodge’s own beach at eight each morning, two anglers to a guide, with no trailer and no fuel stop between the front door and the fish. Deep Creek and Little Creek are five minutes away and open into more than 120 square miles of flats. The southern flats toward Grassy Creek, Hawksbill Creek and Cistern Point hold endless wadeable sand and very few other skiffs, and about fifty minutes through Little Creek lies the West Side, protected as Andros West Side National Park, where the island’s largest bonefish approach the ten pound mark. Six guides share more than 125 years of experience at Bair’s, and give as much or as little instruction as you like.

Evenings return to the sand: cocktail hour from four, cracked conch and grouper fingers on the veranda, dinner built around the sea, and the beachfront fire pit as the light goes. The lodge is open from October to June, and Congo Town airport is about twenty five minutes away, with scheduled flights from Fort Lauderdale Executive and private charters direct from Florida. Bair’s is the bonefishing house among our Caribbean stays.

Blue water in the South Pacific: Kokomo and the Bay of Islands

On the edge of Fiji’s Kadavu group, Kokomo Private Island looks onto the Great Astrolabe Reef, one of the largest and least touched reef systems in the world, running for more than a hundred kilometres. Anglers head for the outer reefs and seamounts after yellowfin, wahoo, sailfish and marlin. Big yellowfin, mahi-mahi and marlin run from October to April; wahoo and sailfish patrol the reef edges from May to September, the same months the reef manta rays gather at a cleaning station within reach of a dive before breakfast.

The island keeps twenty-one beachfront pool villas and five hilltop Residences of up to six bedrooms, each Residence with its own butler and nanny, so a fishing week can carry the whole family: divers to the walls of Solo Reef, children to the Kaji Kids Club, anglers to the seamounts. Kokomo’s own seaplanes and helicopter make the 45 to 60 minute flight from its private hangar at Nadi, on the main island of Fiji.

Further south, in New Zealand’s subtropical north, Paroa Bay & Sage keeps a private 75-acre estate on a peninsula in the Bay of Islands, with its own boat ramp, deep-water mooring and helipad. Charters set out for game fishing for snapper and kingfish, and for marlin in season, when the bay’s game fishing reaches its peak. Ashore, Tarāpunga Villa has three bedrooms and a 17-metre heated infinity pool above the bay, and dinner at Sage, awarded One Hat, is a short walk up the hill.

Trout water on New Zealand’s South Island

In the Ahuriri Valley, The Lindis rests almost undetectably on the 6,500 acres of Ben Avon Station, with one of the world’s celebrated trout rivers a short walk from the door. Fly fishing on the Ahuriri runs from a first lesson to a full day with a guide in season, and backcountry fly fishing lies beyond the valley, with the lodge’s own helipad close at hand. There are only eight places to sleep, two Master Suites, three Lodge Suites and three glass Pods in the tussock, and the whole lodge can be reserved for family or friends.

December to February is the fly-fishing season in full swing, with long evenings and a hot tub beneath some of the darkest skies on earth, at the edge of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve. Elsewhere in Central Otago, Mt Isthmus Villa, a sole-use house of four suites between Lake Hāwea and Lake Wānaka, arranges guided fly fishing for rainbow and brown trout from November to April, with a private chef and a Villa Host for the household alone.

At the head of Lake Wakatipu, The Villa at Blanket Bay sends helicopters from its private heli-pad to remote South Island rivers for fly-fishing, and jet boats from the Lodge’s private dock up the glacier-fed Dart River. Its four King suites suit two couples, or a family of three generations, between days on the water.

Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, Alaska

West of Anchorage, with no road in, Tordrillo Mountain Lodge stands on the shore of Judd Lake beside the Talachulitna River, with 1.2 million acres of the Tordrillo Mountains and its own helicopters. In June, under up to 22 hours of daylight, Kings and Corn pairs corn-snow skiing in the morning with fly-in fishing for king salmon at night, then kings, rainbow trout and grayling on the Talachulitna as the sun sets around one in the morning.

From July to mid-September the helicopter becomes a chauffeur to private water for all five Pacific salmon, rainbow trout, Arctic char and grayling, each outing at four guests to a guide, and the lodge’s Turbine Otter floatplane leaves from the lake for the bears of Brooks Falls in Katmai. The Main Lodge is three storeys of log and glass above the lake, with handcrafted private cabins along the shore, and in summer the whole lodge can be reserved for up to fourteen. Guests are met in downtown Anchorage and flown in by floatplane in about 45 minutes, and in July and August Camp TML gives children of eight to sixteen their own guided days in Alaska.

Blachford Lodge, Northwest Territories, Canada

Twenty five minutes by bush plane from Yellowknife, on floats in summer and on skis in winter, Blachford Lodge sits alone on Blachford Lake, a seventeen kilometre ribbon of water in the boreal wilderness of Canada’s Northwest Territories. The lake itself gives northern pike and lake trout, and fly-in days reach remote water as far as Great Slave Lake for trophy fish.

The Midnight Sun season, early June to mid August, brings nearly twenty hours of daylight and the best of the fishing; from mid August the first dark nights return, with the aurora mirrored on open water. The Sunrise Rooms in the lodge and five log cabins on the shore, among them the Old Trapper’s Cabin where Blachford began in the 1940s, can be taken together for up to twenty two guests, and a cedar sauna waits by the water. We plan a night in Yellowknife either side, because northern weather keeps its own schedule.

When to go and how to plan a fishing week

• The Bahamas. Bair’s Lodge is open October to June. Spring, March to May, is peak season, with tailing fish in ankle deep water; autumn lands some of the largest bonefish of the year; winter brings big schools and the inland creeks for shelter; June gives the best chance at a permit.
• Fiji. Big yellowfin, mahi-mahi and marlin from October to April; wahoo and sailfish from May to September.
• New Zealand. Guided trout fishing on the South Island runs from November to April, with December to February at its height; in the Bay of Islands, marlin season brings the game fishing to its peak.
• Alaska. June into early July for king salmon and corn snow; July to mid-September for all five Pacific salmon by helicopter.
• Northwest Territories. Early June to mid August for the midnight sun and the best of the fishing.
• Small numbers. Twelve anglers at Bair’s, eight rooms at The Lindis, four guests to a guide at Tordrillo. The best weeks are few, and the peak ones are held first.
• Weather and small aircraft. Seaplanes, bush planes and helicopters set the arrival, and the weather sets their timing. We sequence the flights, a night in Anchorage or Yellowknife where it helps, and the lodge as one plan.

Choosing your water

• For bonefish on foot and from the bow: Bair’s Lodge on South Andros.
• For marlin and blue water with the whole family: Kokomo Private Island.
• For game fishing and a winery on the same estate: Paroa Bay & Sage.
• For a celebrated trout river at the door: The Lindis, or Mt Isthmus Villa for a house of your own.
• For salmon by helicopter: Tordrillo Mountain Lodge.
• For trophy lake trout under the midnight sun: Blachford Lodge.

For more stays where the sport is the reason for the journey, from dive walls in Dominica to guided ice in Antarctica, see our Sportfishing & Adventure collection.

Begin the conversation

A fishing week begins with a few details: who is fishing and who would rather not, the species and the month, and whether the days should be spent wading, on the bow or in the air. Share them through Plan My Trip, and a dedicated advisor will arrange the lodge, the guides and the flights in between, privately and for your dates.