February in Philadelphia means cold, gray, and miserable. My brother Chris, my dad Chuck, and I had a simple solution: book a trip somewhere warm and finally check off a bucket list item we’d been talking about for years. Fly fishing for bonefish on Andros Island in the Bahamas.
We do a father and sons trip every year. This one was different.
Getting There
We flew commercial into Nassau, then caught a private charter flight with Titan Air over to Andros. Once we landed, Stacy, the lodge chef and the person who really runs the day-to-day at Stafford Creek, had a van waiting to pick us up. Thirty minutes later we pulled into the lodge and I immediately understood why people come back here year after year.
Small, secluded, right on the water. No crowds, no resort atmosphere, no noise. Just a beautiful piece of property that feels like it belongs to you for the week.
We were the only guests. The whole place was ours.
One Thing to Know Before You Book
Before I get into the fishing, a word of caution for anyone used to all-inclusive guided trips: find out exactly what gear is provided before you show up.
I was used to trips where you just arrive and fish. These guides expected us to come equipped. I had my 8-weight fly rod, but Chuck and Chris didn’t have rods at all. Stafford Creek was able to pull together some loaner gear, which saved us, but it could have been a real problem. Don’t assume. Ask.
For reference, we were fishing 8 to 10-weight rods with 12 to 16-pound leaders. That’s the right setup for Andros bonefish.
Stafford Creek Lodge and the Smith Family Legacy
Prescott Smith helped me book the trip and is one of the guides on the water. But it’s his sister Stacy who holds everything together at the lodge, the food, the logistics, the welcome, all of it. From the moment we arrived, she and her team made sure we had cold drinks, good food, and no reason to stress about anything off the water.
The Smith family history on Andros runs deep. Their father, Charlie Smith, known as “Crazy Charlie, built the first bonefishing lodge on Andros Island back in 1968. He also designed the Crazy Charlie fly, which is still one of the go-to patterns for bonefish on these flats. When your guide ties on a Crazy Charlie, you’re using a fly that was invented here, by the family that pioneered this fishery. That’s not marketing copy. That’s just what it is.
Night One: Tarpon Off the Dock
Stafford Creek sits on North Andros, tucked away from anything resembling tourist infrastructure. The cottages are spread along the creek, each with a private deck overlooking the water. Inside you get two queen beds, air conditioning, a mini fridge stocked with drinks, a coffee maker, and practical touches that matter after a long day on the flats, rod holders, wading boot drying racks, boat towels. In the early mornings, dolphins swim up the creek to feed. It’s that kind of place.
Stacy is the reason the food side of this trip exceeded every expectation I had. Known around the lodge as “Mama Dumpling,” she’s a genuine chef who sharpened her skills with a stint in Italy before bringing it all back to Andros. Everything she put out was built around fresh, never frozen local seafood, which was not something I was expecting when I booked a bonefishing trip. The fresh grouper that first night set the tone. From there it only got better.
Then she mentioned the underwater lights.
The dock has submersible green lights that run at night. They attract baitfish, and the baitfish attract tarpon. A lot of tarpon.
We grabbed our rods and drinks and headed down after dinner. At first there were a handful of fish cruising the light. Then more. Then we were looking at dozens of tarpon, some small, some pushing 50-plus pounds, circling in the glow below us.
First few casts and I hooked into a beast. It immediately started flipping across the surface, peeling drag, and I fought it all the way to the dock and then to the shoreline before it made one more run and snapped the line. We went through a lot of casts and a lot of lost fish that first night. These tarpon are fighters and the light tackle we were using off the dock is not designed to stop them quickly.
Then Chris hooked something that fought completely differently. No acrobatics, no aerial runs, just steady, stubborn pulling. I hand-grabbed it off the rocks. A bonefish. At night. Off the dock.
We celebrated like idiots. It was a great way to start the trip.
By 11pm we called it. Long day of flats fishing ahead.
Day One on the Flats: Bootcamp
Up at 7, light breakfast and coffee, guides arrived by boat. We split into two boats, me alone with one guide, Chuck and Chris together with the other.
The ride out to the flats takes about 30 minutes through channels, cuts, and mangroves. When we arrived I understood why Andros has the reputation it does. The flat stretched out in every direction, one to two feet of water, scattered with small mangrove clusters. It’s enormous. And it looks completely empty until your guide starts pointing.
My guide tied on a Crazy Charlie, a small, sparse crustacean pattern that imitates a shrimp or crab, and explained the system. This is all sight fishing. He spots the fish, calls out a clock position and distance, and you cast to where the fish is heading, not where it is. Land it in front of the fish’s path, let it sink, then strip to trigger the chase.
“Ten o’clock, 15 feet.” I was startled, rushed the cast, dropped it right on top of the fish, and watched it bolt. Lesson one.
A few minutes later, another call. I made the cast, placed it right. “Strip, strip, strip”, I was stripping too fast. He told me to slow down. The fish ate. It took off like something fired out of a cannon, and all the line I’d been stripping off was now zipping through my hand and threatening to tangle around my ankle. That will humble you fast.
After a long fight and a few near-disasters in the mangroves, I got it to the boat. First bonefish. One hour into the day. After that is was hit or miss sight fishing with a few missed opportunities and few landed. These fish are so much fun, but the process will grind you after a few hours. It much different than tight lining small streams in the North East for trout.
That after noon we waded a flat in the howling afternoon wind, which made casting genuinely difficult. We anchored the boat and jumped out to stalk fish in the shallows of the incoming tide. It was so much fun wading through the crystal clear water and spotting a few fish tailing in only a foot or so of water. I scared fish, missed fish, caught fish. The guide criticized all of it. By the time we got back to the dock I was exhausted and happy to be done for the day.
The guides here do not coddle you. They yell. They get visibly disappointed when you blow a cast. There’s no sugar coating and no participation trophy. It feels like fishing bootcamp and that is exactly what you need because bonefish do not give you many chances. Chuck and Chris reported the same experience from their boat, their guide was equally demanding and equally effective.
By the end of day one I had landed around 7 fish. Chuck and Chris each had a few. Everyone caught. Everyone got worked. Chuck caught the biggest fish of the day with a 6-8 lber.
More tarpon fishing that night. More lost fish. Still no landing one.
One gear note from the wading: I wore Orvis Approach pants and water shoes. It works, but sand made its way into the shoes over the course of the day and gave me some nasty blisters. Next trip I’m bringing neoprene socks. Small thing but worth knowing.
Day Two: Reading the Tide
On day two we swapped guides. I got the one Chuck and Chris had on day one, and they got a new one, Sean.
The approach was different immediately. We set up in a shallow cut where the outgoing tide was pushing fish toward us. Instead of hunting and polling, we were essentially waiting in the current and casting to fish that came to us. Watching a bonefish materialize out of the current heading straight at you and then placing a cast in its path is a different kind of challenge than the open flat , you have a narrower window and less room for error.
The wind was worse on day two, and my casting was off. I was scaring fish and blowing presentations. But here’s something worth knowing about bonefishing that I learned the hard way: even a bad cast can work. Some of my worst casts landed close enough, I stripped, and the fish bit anyway. Don’t give up on a cast just because it wasn’t pretty.
We had a few catches at that first spot before the tide turned, then ran across to a crystal clear channel where I hooked up once more. Chris and Chuck met us there for lunch.
Chris and I jumped in for a swim in three feet of water, perfect visibility, and the bottom was covered in hundreds of conch. We found a large starfish sitting in the sand. It’s the kind of thing you don’t expect on a fishing trip and it made the lunch break feel like something else entirely.
The afternoon fishing was slower, mostly boat work, a few more opportunities that didn’t convert. But when we got back to the dock, Chris had put together a monster second half of the day. He ended with double digits, more fish than anyone else in the group. The guy who had never bonefished before two days ago.
Stacy’s team made crab cakes that night. The desserts across the whole trip were exceptional. The food at Stafford Creek is not an afterthought.
Last Night: Finally Getting My Hands on a Tarpon
I was determined. Chuck and Chris had a reasonable bedtime. I did not.
I mixed approaches, fly rod and a lightweight telescopic spinning rod I’d packed with a box of spoons and crankbaits. The spoons crushed it for getting bites. The problem was that “lightweight” spinning rod was absolutely not built for tarpon. These fish would peel off hundreds of feet of line, flip out of the water, and disappear into the darkness. Over and over.
Eventually I worked one close enough to the dock that I got my hand on the leader. I’m calling that a catch. Chuck and Chris were already asleep, so there were no witnesses to dispute it.
The Flight Home
We said goodbye to Stacy and her team in the morning, made it to the small Andros airstrip, and boarded the charter back to Nassau.
On final approach into Nassau, the plane aborted the landing. There was scrambling in the cockpit, some tense silence, and then the pilot told us the landing gear was stuck. We spent some time circling while they worked through options, and we got close enough to the belly-landing conversation that it stopped being abstract. On the last attempt, the gear popped out. We landed. Everyone on that plane let out a breath they’d been holding for a while.
Best fishing trip I’ve taken. Would do it again tomorrow.
What You Need to Know If You’re Booking Andros
The lodge: Stafford Creek Lodge accommodates up to six anglers at a time. Book the whole place if you can, having it to yourselves is the right experience. Contact Prescott at staffordcreeklodge.com.
Gear: Bring your own rods. 8 to 10-weight for bonefish, with 12-16lb leaders. Don’t assume anything is provided. Confirm before you travel.
Flies: The Crazy Charlie is the local pattern and was designed by the Smith family who built this fishery. Have them. Small shrimp and crab patterns in tan and pink also work.
Wading: If you’re going to wade the flats, bring neoprene socks inside your water shoes. Sand intrusion is real and it will find your feet over a long day.
Casting: If you’ve never done saltwater sight fishing, your fresh water muscle memory will work against you. The timing on the strip is different than you think. Slow down. And keep your line organized at your feet or you will regret it.
Season: February was excellent. Light crowds, cooperative fish, and a very good reason to leave Philadelphia in winter.
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