"Andros Island is the richest island in the world."
That line belongs to Captain Rupert Leadon, who has guided anglers out of Cargill Creek for more than forty years and built the Andros Island Bonefish Club into one of the flats' most respected outposts. It is the kind of thing you hear a lot on this island, usually from someone who has spent a career reading tide lines and grass beds nobody else can see. This fall, that reputation gets tested in a new spot, and if you already live on or near Kamalame Cay, the test is happening close enough to feel.
The stop that used to be far away
The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, working with the Tourism Development Corporation, is running its 2nd Annual Bahamas Bonefishing Tournament Series this fall, and the schedule tells a story worth paying attention to if you're already here. Last year's series routed through Grand Lucayan on Grand Bahama, then Andros Island Bonefishing Club in Behring Point, then Unique Village in Governor's Harbour on Eleuthera, before wrapping with a championship the following week. Behring Point sits on the island's west side, well south and inland of Fresh Creek, reachable but not exactly a quick errand from Staniard Creek or the Kamalame ferry dock.
This year the Andros stop moved. From September 30 through October 4, the tournament sets up at the Andros Lighthouse Yacht Club in Fresh Creek, before the series continues to Stella Maris Resort Club on Long Island from October 14 through 18, and finishes with the championship at Hideaways at Palm Bay in George Town, Exuma, from November 10 through 15.
| Stop | Dates | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| Andros | Sept 30 – Oct 4, 2026 | Andros Lighthouse Yacht Club, Fresh Creek |
| Long Island | Oct 14 – 18, 2026 | Stella Maris Resort Club |
| Exuma (Championship) | Nov 10 – 15, 2026 | Hideaways at Palm Bay, George Town |
That change in venue is the actual news here. Fresh Creek is not a remote stand-in for Andros the way Behring Point can feel to visitors flying in for a week. It is the island's administrative hub, and it sits inside the same short hop that already brings guests, staff and supplies to Kamalame Cay every day.
Twenty minutes, one ferry ride
The distance is not abstract. Kamalame Cay's own transfer information puts an Andros Town or Fresh Creek Airport arrival at roughly a twenty-minute drive to the ferry dock, followed by an eight-minute crossing to the Cay itself. Andros Town International sits about twelve miles from the Cay by the standard airport-distance measure travel guides use. The Andros Lighthouse Yacht Club and Marina, where the tournament base camp will operate, sits right at the mouth of Fresh Creek in Andros Town, a few hundred yards from where the ferry pickup happens. The Androsia Batik Factory, the hand-dyed fabric operation the Birch family started in 1973, sits next door to the yacht club, which means the same stretch of shoreline is about to host a marina full of tournament boats and the walk-in traffic of a working textile factory at the same time.
None of this requires a car rental or a long day trip to notice. It is the same twelve miles residents and staff already cross for groceries, a package pickup, or a doctor's visit at the Fresh Creek clinic.
What a shared guide pool actually means
Here is the part that matters more than the venue change itself. Andros does not have separate guiding economies for Fresh Creek, Cargill Creek and Staniard Creek. It has one small, tightly networked pool of licensed guides who move between creeks depending on where the work and the tide are best that week. The tournament format pairs two anglers per boat with a licensed Bahamian guide, and with an entry fee of $500 per angler and more than $100,000 in cash and prizes on the line across the series, this is not a casual weekend charter. Guides who might otherwise be free for a Kamalame Cay guest booking a morning on the flats are, for those five days at the end of September, working the tournament instead.
Moorings at the Lighthouse Yacht Club run $10 a day under normal circumstances, and a tournament fleet fills that marina fast. Expect the radio traffic on VHF, the seaplane and Makers Air schedule into Fresh Creek, and the after-hours crowd at whichever bar is pouring that week to all tick up noticeably, then settle back down once the boats move on to Long Island.
If you already live here, the practical short list looks like this:
- Guides based anywhere near Fresh Creek or Cargill Creek get harder to book for personal charters between September 30 and October 4
- Air and seaplane traffic through Andros Town and Fresh Creek airports increases for the same window
- Marina moorings at the Lighthouse Yacht Club fill up faster than a normal week
- Foot traffic past the Androsia Batik Factory picks up as tournament visitors wander the same stretch of shoreline
- Friday night rake-and-scrape and goombay music at the Fresh Creek and Nicholls Town community parks draws a bigger crowd than usual, since that is exactly the kind of local color visiting anglers seek out after a day on the water
Why the calendar lines up on purpose
The timing is not an accident. Bonefishing guides working the Bahamas generally point to October through May or June as the productive stretch, when water temperatures and fish behavior favor sight-casting on the flats. A tournament that opens September 30 is functioning as the unofficial start of the season for the east side of Andros, not an isolated event dropped into an otherwise quiet month. The series structure reinforces that read. After Andros, it moves to Long Island's Stella Maris Resort Club, then closes with the championship in George Town, Exuma, built around a GOAT Award for any team that lands a bonefish, tarpon and permit in a single day. That is a real grand slam, and it is rare enough that most guides who have logged decades on the water still talk about the day they pulled one off.
The series is governed by International Game Fish Association standards, and for the second year running, the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust is the conservation partner, which means the catch-and-release protocols get reinforced across every stop, Andros included. For a fishery that Andros residents and guides alike have built a livelihood around for generations, that partnership is less a marketing detail and more a signal that the people running this series understand what is actually at stake if the flats get overfished or mishandled.
What this actually changes if you already live near Fresh Creek
None of this is a reason to rearrange your month. It is a reason to plan around five specific days if you were counting on a guide, a mooring, or a quiet run to the batik factory. Book charter time before September 30 if you want a guaranteed guide rather than whoever is free after the tournament boats clear out. If you are picking up supplies through Fresh Creek, a run in the week before the 30th beats fighting tournament-week traffic at the dock. And if you like live music on a Friday night, this is the week to actually go, because the crowd at the community park will be bigger than usual and the music will likely run later.
The bigger point is what the venue shift says about how this part of Andros is developing. A tournament organizer choosing Fresh Creek over Behring Point is choosing paved road access, an international airport, an established marina, and a settlement that can absorb a few hundred visitors without straining. That is the same infrastructure that makes Kamalame Cay's twenty-minute, eight-minute-ferry commute to the mainland work every single day. Tournament week is temporary. The reason organizers picked this stretch of shoreline is not.
If you are weighing what a place like Kamalame Cay actually offers beyond the postcard version, Bond Bahamas tracks these details year-round, from the guide networks that make the flats fishery what it is to the ownership side of island life once the tournament boats move on. Reach out when you are ready to talk specifics.
