Travel Advice

Honest fishing travel advice from guides and outfitters who have spent real time in the field.

Why book through Sweetwater Travel? Because long ago we learned that honesty was better than a sold trip. Undersell and always outperform expectations. Our travel experts have been guides for longer than almost anyone in the business, and they know fishing because they have lived it. They are first and foremost guides; travel experts when the seasons are done. Scott Schumacher and Pat Vermillion are great examples. Both have been guiding in Alaska nonstop since the eighties. When it comes to Alaska, they will give you the straight scoop: not what they read in a brochure, but what they learned in the field.

The Vermillions are fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, so when you are talking about Brazil for peacock bass, know that they were there fishing and exploring well before commercial operations were set up. Together with Luis Brown and Garett Vene Klassen, they pioneered most of the great peacock rivers in the Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas, including famous rivers like the Marie, Agua Boa, Tapera, Araca, and Xeruini. At the time, they were running camps out of Coleman tents for months at a time. The operations are far more comfortable now, but the knowledge and experience from those early exploratory years still matter.

The point is simple: our travel advice is based on days in the field. We live to fish and we recommend trips with the same honesty we expect from outfitters ourselves. The advice costs you nothing; the outfitter pays a commission. Since we are outfitters too, we understand that relationship better than anyone.

Destination Advice

These pages are not generic destination summaries. They are practical notes on what each place does well, where expectations can go sideways, and when a trip is worth chasing.