On our second trip to the Rio Negro region of Brazil’s Amazonas state, Hanna dialed in the topwater bite and put everyone else to shame with her big fish consistency.

As our trip to Guatemala approached, several family members urged us to postpone the trip, but in the end we decided that our health and risk tolerance weighed in favor of going ahead as planned. Guatemala has required a recent negative COVID test to enter for several months, but only recently did the CDC require one for reentry into the United States. That meant getting our brains swabbed twice, but 10 seconds of discomfort versus 40-plus sailfish seemed like a fair trade.

When we talk about fishing tourism in Brazil, most anglers from outside the country soon envision the tucunaré-açu (Amazon peacock bass), a spectacular fish, able to generate merciless attacks on our surface lures, very strong and also extraordinarily beautiful. They’re not the only option.

Looking for the ultimate spring weekend trip – one that’s easy to get to, likely to produce loads of fish and not terribly expensive? Think Detroit. It’s a trip I took with a group of my lady anglers a couple of years back. We caught a lot of fish, ate like queens, and even took some fillets home.

Casa Vieja Lodge can’t control the weather or the fishing — although both have been exceptional each time we’ve visited — but they’re very conscious to knock it out of the park when it comes to variables they can control.

If you want to get out of a COVID-induced malaise, a trip to Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala is a quick way to jump start your heart.

During our trip to Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala, which exceeded all expectations, Hanna and I caught the billfish bug. Unfortunately, it’s a tad bit more expensive than catching, say, the crappie bug, so we’ll have to choose our future locations surgically.

I have been to the city of Manaus, Brazil, the gateway to the Amazon, three times – well, actually six times, because we’ve stopped there on the way in and out of the jungle on each fishing trip. It is a bustling yet friendly city, a once-wealthy home to barons of the rubber industry and now a free-trade zone.

I’d heard about Grosse Savanne’s bass fishing before I ever visited, notably from people like James Overstreet, who asked bluntly, “Why should I go all the way to Mexico when I can drive four hours down the road to Grosse Savanne and catch 100 bass a day, every day?” I’ve been around the block enough times to know that few things in fishing are ever as promised, but Grosse Savanne lived up to the hype.

While seafood is of course a prime consideration at any water-based trip, we’ve also had some exceptional beef (and “beef substitutes”) in our travels. Here are some of the most memorable ones.

While not all problems can be eliminated, the more seamless you make your journey, the more likely you are to be able to remember the highs and forget the lows. Developing the site has also forced us to think critically about our own practices, and to work to control the things that we can control.

I will never be as famous as Vinko Bogataj for his wipeout featured on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, but my disappointments and failures leave me just as devastated. Anyone who has ever fished knows that while we like to talk about our success, the chatter at the dock is always about “the one that got away.”

While floating down the Chobe River we came across one of the most amazing wildlife sights — you have to see it to believe it. It wasn’t even the most unbelievable part of our three-week trip to Africa.

I’m typically not one to make resolutions but I am very goal-oriented. I also love checklists. I love the satisfaction of crossing off “to do’s” and I will do something that isn’t written on the checklist, then write it down just to check it off. In 2021, I’m accelerating my dreams.

If you’re traveling to catch a new species, unless you’re exclusively a trophy hunter and you’re willing to blank, go someplace where you’re going to get a lot of bites. That may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often travelers disregard it. They’ll go to a fishery that has “some” smallmouths or “some” muskies and target those lesser fish, rather than either targeting the predominant species or going someplace that actually has numbers. Then they’re surprised that they don’t succeed.

We’re headed to famous Lake El Salto in June of 2021 for an offshore slugfest — and there are rooms available if you want to join us.

As I’ve described before, I am the ultimate hoarder of vacation time, using every legal and ethical hack in the book to make what I’m granted go as far as possible. Of course, 2020 was a challenge to anyone looking to maximize vacation. On the one hand, we had forces preventing us from going anywhere (and I hate the idea of a “staycation”), but we needed the release more than ever.

We are headed back to the most amazing part of the United States in the middle of August to chase trout, salmon, bears and halibut. If you have not been, it’s a MUST for the avid angler or wildlife-watcher.

One of the reasons that we’re headed back to Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala is because the sailfish are so incredibly acrobatic. Every one of the 37 we landed jumped multiple times.

I have a lot of fish to consider for the “Favorite of 2020” title, culled from excursions that included 18 days on the water at El Salto and 6 in Alaska. Despite that, and perhaps not surprisingly, my favorite fish came from our newest venue, Guatemala. What might be surprising is that I wasn’t the one who caught it.