The Complete Saltwater Fishing Calendar: When to Chase Every Fish Worth Traveling For

A season-by-season guide to timing the world's best fisheries, from the flats of the Bahamas to the blue water of the Galapagos and the jungle rivers of South America.

There is a hard truth in destination fishing that nobody likes to say out loud. You can pick the right lodge, the right guide, and the right water, and still come home with the wrong story, all because you went at the wrong time.

Timing is the quiet variable that decides everything. A fishery that produces the trip of a lifetime in one month can go flat and quiet a few months later. The fish are still there. The window is not.

What follows is the calendar we plan around, organized by season, with the destinations in our portfolio placed in the windows where they actually produce. Use it to point your time at the right water, whenever you are able to carve that time out.

Winter (December through February)

While the flats back home cool off, winter opens some of the most remarkable fishing on the calendar, most of it below the equator or deep in the tropics.

This is golden dorado season in Argentina. The southern summer turns the Corriente and Parana systems on, and the river tiger feeds with the aggression that makes it a bucket-list fish. Don Joaquin River Lodge and Rio Bravo Lodge both sit in the heart of this water, and the warm months of the southern hemisphere, roughly November through March, are the heart of the season. Many seasoned dorado anglers point to the back half of this window as the very best of it.

Offshore, the Galapagos comes alive. The legendary striped marlin season builds through winter toward its peak, and Sportfish Galapagos Expeditions puts you on water that can produce double-digit shots at fish when the bite is on. Few big-game experiences on earth concentrate billfish like this one, and the season is only just getting started.

Closer to home, winter is trophy bonefish season in the Bahamas. As the water cools, the largest, most mature single fish move onto the flats and turn bonefishing into a true hunt. Swain's Cay Lodge on Andros sits in the middle of one of the most productive bonefish ecosystems on earth, its central location opening onto both the Middle and South Bights. Soul Fly Lodge in the quiet Berry Islands is where a single trophy bone can make an entire day. Permit are less predictable in the coldest stretch, holding to deeper channels, but the bonefishing is at its most rewarding.

And in Baja, the tail end of the Magdalena Bay striped marlin run carries into early winter. Sportfish Mag Bay works the sardine-run water where marlin corral bait against the surface, one of the great spectacles in the sport before the season winds down.

Spring (March through May)

Spring is one of the best all-around windows on the entire calendar. Fisheries overlap, the flats warm and switch on, and several of our destinations hit their prime at once.

In the Galapagos, striped marlin peak hard in February and March, so the early part of spring is the crown of that fishery. Sportfish Galapagos Expeditions runs squarely through this window, and prime dates book well ahead.

Across the Bahamas, rising water temperatures wake up tarpon and permit. What was a winter bonefish game becomes a shot at all three species. Soul Fly Lodge and Swain's Cay Lodge both come alive in this stretch, permit moving back onto the flats where you can wade to them, tarpon beginning their warm-season push.

Spring also opens the remote Gulf. Scorpion Atoll, fished from the Silver Tide Liveaboard, has a defined window that begins in April and runs into mid-June, when weather allows access to this far-offshore reef and its above-average bonefish and permit. It is a genuine last frontier, lightly fished and worth the effort to reach.

Farther south, Belize is prime permit water. Copal Tree Lodge in Punta Gorda gives you access to a fishery in a country widely regarded as the permit capital of the world, with bonefish and early-season tarpon rounding out the flats.

In the central Pacific, Fanning Island moves into its best conditions. The Fanning Huts operation sits on one of the most remote atolls you can still reach, with white-sand flats holding double-digit bonefish and giant trevally, and equatorial weather that stays stable through much of the year. And in the Caribbean, No Name Fly Lodge on Puerto Rico's west coast offers un-pressured permit and resident tarpon within an easy flight of the U.S.

Summer (June through August)

Summer is when the warm-water flats and the jungle rivers take center stage, and when a couple of genuinely wild destinations open their doors.

In the Bahamas, this is prime permit and tarpon time. The warm months bring the most consistent shots at permit feeding in skinny water, and tarpon fishing is at its strongest. Soul Fly Lodge and Swain's Cay Lodge both fish well through the warm season for anglers chasing the grand slam.

Belize peaks for tarpon now. The migratory fish move through in force, and June through August is widely considered the best tarpon stretch of the year. Copal Tree Lodge puts you on permit, bonefish, and these big summer tarpon, a legitimate shot at all three in a single day.

This is also when South America's jungle fishing opens. As the Bolivian Amazon enters its dry season, the rivers drop and clear and the fish concentrate into water you can reach. Arapaima Lodge targets one of the largest freshwater fish on earth, a prehistoric air-breather that surfaces with a sound you do not forget, in a window that runs roughly June through October. It is remote, immersive fishing in wild country, guided by people who know these rivers intimately.

In the central Pacific, Fanning Island continues to fish beautifully through the summer, its equatorial climate holding steady while much of the northern hemisphere bakes. The Fanning Huts remain one of the best remote flats options on the board.

Fall (September through November)

Fall closes the year with two of the most dramatic fisheries in the portfolio, plus the reopening of several favorites.

The headline is Magdalena Bay. From late October into December, the sardine run draws thousands of striped marlin into the bay to hunt bait against the surface, and Sportfish Mag Bay puts you in the middle of it. Marlin, sailfish, dorado, and tuna crashing bait balls under diving birds. It is a short, spectacular window and one of the great wildlife events in fishing.

The remote Gulf opens again as well. Scorpion Atoll's fall window, October and November, brings the Silver Tide Liveaboard back to those far-offshore flats for big tailing bonefish and shots at permit, in some of the least-pressured water anywhere.

In the Bolivian Amazon, the dry season runs into the fall, so Arapaima Lodge remains in its productive window through October before the rivers change.

Argentina, meanwhile, comes back online as its spring arrives. Golden dorado season reopens at Don Joaquin River Lodge and Rio Bravo Lodge, setting up the southern-summer fishing that carries back into the new year and giving you a reason to start planning while the northern flats go quiet.

The Year at a Glance

• Winter: Argentina golden dorado (Don Joaquin, Rio Bravo), Galapagos marlin building (Sportfish Galapagos), Bahamas trophy bonefish (Swain's Cay, Soul Fly), Mag Bay marlin winding down (Sportfish Mag Bay).
• Spring: Galapagos marlin peak (Sportfish Galapagos), Bahamas tarpon and permit switching on (Soul Fly, Swain's Cay), Scorpion Atoll opens (Silver Tide), Belize permit (Copal Tree), Fanning prime (Fanning Huts), Puerto Rico permit and tarpon (No Name).
• Summer: Bahamas warm-season permit and tarpon (Soul Fly, Swain's Cay), Belize tarpon peak (Copal Tree), Bolivia dry season opens (Arapaima Lodge), Fanning prime (Fanning Huts).
• Fall: Mag Bay marlin peak (Sportfish Mag Bay), Scorpion Atoll fall window (Silver Tide), Bolivia dry season closing (Arapaima Lodge), Argentina dorado reopening (Don Joaquin, Rio Bravo).

There is no off-season in destination fishing. There is only knowing where the season is at any given moment, and pointing yourself at it.

Plan It Around the Calendar

Every fishery here is one we work with directly, and the single most common mistake we help anglers avoid is going to the right place at the wrong time. The fish do not read your work calendar. But we read theirs.

Tell us the fish you are after, and we will tell you when it is on, and build the trip around that window. That is the whole point of doing this right.

Message us and let's put you on the water at the moment it matters most.