Finding the fish is the skipper’s job. Finding the skipper is yours.
Whether the licence is in the price. Who supplies the rods and the bait. Half day or full. Whether you keep the catch or hand it back over the side. Reviews of fishing trips you can actually book, from Lapland ice to Baja marlin.
Four fishing days worth planning a whole trip around.
An Arctic fjord, a hole augered through Lapland ice, a drift boat off Florida and a half-day out of Key West. What each costs, and what the people who went say.
01The Arctic boatTromsø: Arctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing ExperienceCod and coalfish on a fjord ringed by mountains, three hours out of Tromsø. Warm suits are handed out at the quay.
02The frozen lakeRovaniemi: Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with LunchSnowmobile out, auger a hole, sit on a stool until a perch turns up. Lunch is cooked over a fire in a lavvu.
03The Florida driftDrift Fishing Trip off the Coast of Fort LauderdaleFort Lauderdale drift boat, rods and bait on board, mate baits the hooks. The cheapest way to fish blue water.
04The Keys half-dayKey West Half-Day Fishing CharterFour hours out of Key West with a skipper who knows the wrecks. Snapper and grouper, cleaned and bagged at the dock.
Florida drift boats, Lapland ice holes, Baja marlin: six countries that fish.
Gulf Stream drifts out of Fort Lauderdale, a hole cut through half a metre of Lapland ice, pangas under the Cabo arch, cod stacked in a Norwegian fjord, caiques off the Greek islands and blue water twenty minutes from Punta Cana.
One country, three completely different fishing days.
A drift boat out of Fort Lauderdale, a flats skiff in the Keys, a salmon and halibut charter out of Ketchikan. Same passport, nothing else in common. Here is what each costs to board.
A whole boat to yourself, or a seat on somebody else’s.
A private charter buys quiet water, the skipper’s full attention and the mark he actually likes. A shared boat gets you fishing for the price of dinner and puts six strangers either side of you. These are the ones people book most.
The fishing days more people book than any others.
Every fishing trip we have reviewed →Arctic fjords, Florida drift boats and one Lapland ice hole with a queue. What earns each of them the slot.
1
Tromsø: Arctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing Experience
Set out from central Tromsø with guides such as Ken, Christina, and Kristina for a five-hour fjord cruise with fishing, wildlife watching, thermal suits, hot drinks, and fish soup made onboard. You’ll visit Rya Island and Ramfjord, with time to fish at several spots.
From · $152
Read our review →
2
Rovaniemi: Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunch
from $222
3
Makarounas Fishing Boat Trip with swimming stop and BBQ on board
from $78
4
Bering Sea Crab Fisherman’s Tour from Ketchikan
from $249
5
Drift Fishing Trip off the Coast of Fort Lauderdale
from $85
6
From Svolvaer: Lofoten Fishing Boat Cruise
from $135
7
Half-Day Fishing Trip in Fort Lauderdale
from $73
8
Tromsø: Fishing Sea Safari
from $223
Past the shelf, where the rods are thick and the fish outgrow the cooler.
Trolling for marlin off Baja, drifting the Gulf Stream for mahi, jigging cod on a Norwegian fjord. Deep-sea days leave at first light, run six to ten hours and are the reason half the people on this site got on a plane.
Fishing runs on a season, and it is not the one your leave is booked in.
Lapland ice carries a snowmobile from roughly January to April and not a day longer. Marlin off Baja peak from June to November. Tarpon show in the Keys in spring, cod pile into the Norwegian fjords in midwinter, squid come to the lamps only after dark. Pick the month first, then pick the boat.
What a day’s fishing actually costs.
Every trip here, grouped by what it costs to get on board. A seat on a party boat is cheaper than dinner; a boat with your name on it for the day is a different conversation entirely.
Party boats, pier and jetty mornings, half-days on a lake and the shared seats out of the tourist harbours.
The standard half-day charter: skipper, rods, bait and ice, shared with five or six others.
Private boats, offshore marlin days, Arctic fjord runs and anything that ends with the catch on a fire.
Ice fishing is a hole, a stool and a thermos. That is the whole appeal.
An auger through half a metre of Lapland ice, a heated cabin twenty paces away and perch that come up one at a time. Most Rovaniemi operators bolt it onto a snowmobile ride and finish with the catch in a pan over an open fire.
Every Finnish fishing day →
Three fishing days you cannot buy anywhere else.
Charter boats are much the same the world over. A hole cut through Arctic ice, squid jigged under lamps at midnight and a guided river beat you wade into up to your chest are not.
Fishing Through the Ice
An auger, a scoop and a folding stool. The hole skins over while you sit next to it, so it gets cleared every few minutes, and what comes up is perch about the size of your hand. Operators run it as half a day with a snowmobile ride either side and lunch over a fire in a lavvu. The ice, not the calendar, decides: most seasons open in January and are finished by late April.
- 1Rovaniemi: Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 879 reviews
- 2Fairbanks Ice Fishing Expedition in a Heated Cabin with Fish Cookout★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 461 reviews
- 3Rovaniemi: Ice Fishing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 379 reviews
Squid Under the Lamps
Squid come to light, so the boats go out at dusk with lamps hung over the side and drop weighted jigs that look like nothing in nature. There is no bent rod and no fight, just a soft weight on the line and then ink over everything within reach. Greece, Vietnam and Singapore all run night trips. The good ones hand you a jacket you do not mind ruining.
- 1Phu Quoc Sunset and Night Squid Fishing with Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 3.3 · 93 reviews
- 2Koh Samui Day and Night Fishing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 37 reviews
- 3RedRiverTours – Enjoying Sunset & Night Squid Fishing★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 17 reviews
Fly Fishing, Waist Deep
A guide, borrowed chest waders and a river that has to be read before it can be fished. Fly trips run two to six hours, are almost always catch and release, and cost more per hour than a boat seat because you are paying for the person standing beside you saying where the fish are lying. Montana, Jackson Hole and the Scottish beats are the ones people book flights around.
- 1Fly Fishing Trips in Bariloche★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 137 reviews
- 2Half-Day Traditional Driftboat Fly Fishing at Jackson Hole★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 51 reviews
- 3Half-Day Alaska Private Fly Fishing Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 43 reviews
Four fishing days that run on a season, not on your dates.
Most charters can be arranged from the harbour wall the afternoon before. These four cannot. The ice has to be thick enough, the run has to be on, and in one case there is exactly one boat.
- 01Rovaniemi: Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with LunchNobody drills a hole until the ice will carry a snowmobile. Lapland sells January to April and stops the day it softens.
- 02Bering Sea Crab Fisherman’s Tour from KetchikanThe Bering Sea crab boat out of Ketchikan runs to the cruise season, and there is one of it.
- 03Ketchikan salmon and halibut fishing charterAlaskan salmon charters run to the run itself. Kings first, then silvers, then the boats come out of the water.
- 04Private fishing charter Boat 48ft 12 pax Good Marlin and SailfishMarlin and dorado peak off Baja from June to November, and the skippers worth having are booked out weeks ahead of those months.
By place — where the boats go out
The USAfrom $33
Finlandfrom $92
Mexicofrom $155
Norwayfrom $107
Greecefrom $56- Ketchikanfrom $249
Key Westfrom $85
Fort Lauderdalefrom $73- Every fishing destination →
By kind of fishing — boat, ice, flats or fly
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