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Fishing: While staying at Salina Point Lodge, your primary fishing areas will include the middle and southern end of Acklins Island. This is fantastic bonefish habitat with miles of flats, mangroves and creek systems lining the shoreline. You will find schools of bonefish as well as single larger bonefish. Many of the flats are easily wadeable and present anglers with great opportunities for casting to shallow water tailing bonefish. There is also a variety of other species including barracuda, triggerfish, sharks, jacks and snapper. Salina Point is a great place if you are looking for a variety of fish to catch on the flats.
Salina Point Lodge gives anglers the option of Do-It-Yourself wade fishing or hiring a wade or boat guide. For the Do-It-Yourself enthusiasts, you will be given maps, tide charts, a take along lunch and various helpful pointers on where to go and how to catch these wonderful flats fish. You will have use of a vehicle, kayak, or be dropped off and picked up by a Salina Point staff member. There will also be locations only reachable by boat, in which case you will be shuttled by boat to these locations.
The fishing program here is very diverse – each day anglers will be fishing a different piece of water, always seeing new flats and creek systems. There is also an excellent flat right in front of the lodge with bonefish, triggerfish and barracuda only a cast away. For anglers who would like to be guided for any portion of their stay, just let us know and we’d be happy to arrange it for you!
Trip Packages and Pricing: A full Do-It-Yourself week at Salina Point Lodge is $1600 per person based on double occupancy. The single occupancy rate is $2080. If you are interested in a wade fishing guide for the day, it is $63 per person/per day for two anglers. For a single angler, a wade fishing guide is $125 per day. If you would like a boat guide for the day, prices are $300 for one angler or $150 per person for two anglers.
Lodge Facility and Accommodations: Salina Point is a beautiful new lodge accommodating up to ten guests per week. Situated on a private beach over a mile and a half off the ‘main’ road, each of the five guest rooms overlook a wild and uninhabited beach that fades into the warm azure waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Each room has two queen size beds, a full bathroom, ceiling fan, central air and ample shelving for organizing your gear. In the spacious dining room, breakfast to order and delicious dinners featuring, lobster, fish, chicken, conch and ribs are served. Lunches are packed in the morning and will be taken with you for your fishing day. In addition, there is a huge porch that spans the entire length of the lodge – an ideal place to relax, have a cool beverage and enjoy the evening air after a long day on the water.
What’s Included: The price listed includes lodging, all meals, soft drinks, airport transfer, boat shuttles, car shuttles or vehicle use and kayak access.
Reel Action Inclusions: Maps with suggested fishing locations, tide charts, recommended flies, tackle and gear, as well as other helpful do-it-yourself tips.
What’s NOT Included: The price listed does NOT include airfare to and from Spring Point, Acklins Island, Bahamas, alcoholic beverages, or any staff and guide gratuities.
Non-Angling Activities: Sunbathing and snorkeling.
How to Get There: To get to Salina Point Lodge, you will fly into the Spring Point airport on Acklins Island. At the airport you will be met by a Salina Point representative and driven to the lodge, about an hour’s drive. Bahamas Air has two flights per week to Acklins Island from Nassau, Saturday and Wednesday. Pineapple Air also has two flights per week from Nassau, Monday and Friday. Both of these flights leave at around 8:30am, so an overnight stay in Nassau the night before is required. The flight is just under one hour. The roundtrip cost for Bahamas Air is $248 and for Pineapple Air the roundtrip cost is $270. To contact Bahamas Air, call toll free 1-800-222-4262, or their website is http://up.bahamasair.com. To contact Pineapple Air, call 242-377-0140, or their website is www.pineappleair.net. Another option is to hire a charter from Nassau or Florida. Please contact us for more information.
Last Trip Summary: This past February and March we spent over two weeks exploring and researching the middle and southern end of Acklins Island – it was fantastic! There were endless flats to choose from, many having good numbers of bonefish and were easily wadeable with hard bottoms that stretched for miles. We also explored mangrove creeks that had bonefish, barracuda, sharks, snapper, jacks and triggerfish. Both the flats and creeks offered great opportunities for tailing bonefish. I can remember several fish that I hooked less than twenty-five feet away.
It’s always exhilarating to cast a weightless fly and watch a bonefish charge and eat the fly in ten inches of water. Each day we fished a different flat and with each new flat came new discoveries and new fishing opportunities. In addition, there was not a soul to be seen, nor were there signs of anything even remotely manmade.
Besides the bonefish, other species that we enjoyed catching were triggerfish, shark and barracuda. The barracuda in particular were a blast – by casting deceivers, poppers and needlefish patterns, we were able to entice several good-sized fish to bite. One of the highlights of this trip was a barracuda that Gavin caught. We were fishing a great little mangrove creek and the tide was on its way out so there was good water flow at the mouth. I was casting towards the mangroves for snapper when all of a sudden a large barracuda came over to inspect my fly. I called Gavin over because he was fishing a 10-weight rod that was already rigged with a steel leader and a 3/0 deceiver pattern. In the meantime, the barracuda had set up facing into the current in a steep drop off just inside the creek mouth. It was in perfect ambush position and ready to annihilate anything attempting to leave the creek. Gavin made a sixty foot cast, positioning the deceiver about twenty feet upstream of the barracuda. It drifted down with the current, and when it was about seven feet away from the fish he gave it a few good twitches and BAM the barracuda was on! After a ten minute battle of line sizzling runs and aerial leaps, we landed the mighty fish in the shallows. It was a beautiful 47” fish, fresh from the deep ocean. It was bright silver and blue and had several sea lice on it. Can’t get any better than that!
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