Turneffe Island Resort

Turneffe Island Resort offers the best and most diverse fly fishing opportunities in all of Belize – and if you’re nuts about permit it’s THE place to fish!

Turneffe Island Resort is a Belizian luxury lodge situated on its own little idyllic island in the Southern part of the greater complex of coral and mangrove islands called Turneffe Islands. The island houses around 30 guests who are housed in beachside apartments and cabanas. Aside from the housing facilities, the lodge consists of a main building with a cosy dining hall, an outdoor pool area with its own wooden deck and bar as well as a marina.

Both the setting and the service – and not least the food, is fantastic, and the atmosphere is relaxed and open-hearted. About two-thirds of the visitors on the island are there to dive and snorkel on some of the exceptionally beautiful and fascinating diving sites in the area. The rest are typically there to fish, and they are in good hands. A total of eight passionate and highly professional guides work at the lodge, and they know every single flat, every mangrove tidal current, and every reef in the overwhelmingly big and geographically chaotic island-complex as if it was the back of their laborious hands. Between them, they have in the vicinity of 200 years of experience guiding, and most of them are born and raised on Turneffe Islands, which has given them an enormously shrewd understanding and appreciation of the whole eco system.

Typically, you’ll be fishing from eight o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon – both wading and from the cool and practical boats. This means that you have about nine hours of flats- and open water fishing every day, and this is more than enough to try out different spots and different fish. One week’s worth of guided fishing – including housing at the resort, costs 2.990US Dollars in the high season, and it includes delicious lunch packages and cool drinks, so that all you need to worry about is catching that highly prized trophy fish. As a supplement, you can book some night fishing, which is a great idea, if you want to target tarpon.

The season stretches across the whole year, but especially March, April and May are great for permit fishing. If you want to go full-hearted for a grand slam, or if you are a sucker for tarpon, the period from mid-May until the end of September is the optimal time to visit the lodge. The average size of the permit is truly impressive with 20lb fish being common and 40-50lb fish being a real possibility – if you’re able to land them that is!