Ask these questions before you wire the fishing lodge deposit

The number on the website is the number for lodging, meals, and a guide. It's not the number that hits your card. By the time you've paid the deposit, the license, the flight, the gratuity, the fish processing, and the second rain jacket you bought at the pro shop because yours leaked, you're usually looking at somewhere between a third and a half again on top of the advertised package.

Budget for that first. Then start asking questions, because the difference between a great lodge week and an expensive one comes down to about six of them, and none of them are answered on the booking page.

Start with what "all-inclusive" actually includes

There's no standard definition. At one lodge it means lodging, three meals, a guide and boat, fuel, and your fish cleaned and packed. At another it means a bed and a buffet, and the guide is a separate line item at day rates.

Ask for the itemized version in writing. Specifically: is the boat shared or private, is fuel included, are meals all three or just breakfast and dinner, is beer and wine included or billed, is your fish cleaned and vacuum-packed at no charge, and is there a charge to store it frozen until you leave.

Then ask the question nobody asks. What isn't included that most first-timers assume is? A good booking manager will rattle off four things immediately. A bad one will say "everything's included" and you'll find out on checkout day.

The gratuity is a real line, not a rounding error

At a guided lodge, tipping isn't optional in practice and it isn't small. The common guidance you'll hear is 15 to 20 percent of the package price, split between your guide and the house staff, or a flat daily figure per guide if you're on a boat by yourself.

On a four-day trip with a private guide, that's real money. Ask the lodge directly what's customary there and how they want it handled. Most have a system: cash in an envelope at the desk, or a tip added to the final bill and distributed. Bring cash anyway. Satellite internet goes down and card readers go with it.

Sort the travel before you fall in love with the photos

Fly-in lodges look incredible in the gallery. The gallery doesn't mention that the floatplane shuttle is a separate charter, that it's weight-limited, and that it doesn't fly in fog.

Three questions, in order:

• What's the last commercial airport, and who moves me from there to the lodge?
• Is that transfer included, and what's the weight limit per person including tackle?
• If weather cancels the shuttle, who pays for the hotel night in town?

That third one is the one that bites. Some lodges eat it. Most don't. If you're flying into a remote camp, buy the trip insurance and read what it covers for weather delays, because a two-day fog hold on a five-day trip is the whole vacation.

Drive-in lodges trade scenery for control. You bring your own cooler, your own rods, and an extra pair of boots, and if the road's open you're fishing. For a first lodge trip with your son, the drive-in is usually the smarter buy.

The question that separates good lodges from expensive ones

Ask what happens on a blown-out day.

Wind, lightning, a river running the color of chocolate milk. It happens on every multi-day trip, and the lodge's answer tells you everything about how they operate. The good ones have a plan already: a sheltered bay, a lake on the other side of the ridge, a pond nobody fishes, a half day that starts at 5 a.m. before the wind builds. The weak ones shrug and offer you the lodge's DVD collection.

There's no refund for weather. Anywhere. Don't ask for one and don't book somewhere that promises one, because that promise means they're pricing the risk into your rate.

Who's in the boat, and who's paying for the third seat

Two anglers per guide is standard. Three is common and it's a meaningfully worse day of fishing, because somebody is always out of position and the guide is netting and re-rigging for one more person.

If you're bringing a kid, ask about the minimum age and then ask a better question: how many kids did they host last season and what did those kids do at 2 p.m. when the bite died. A lodge that's genuinely set up for families will tell you about the dock, the pond with panfish in it, the bikes. A lodge that says "oh, kids are fine" hasn't had one in three years.

Same logic for a wife who doesn't fish. Some lodges have a lower non-angler rate and a real program around it. Some charge you full freight to put her in a lawn chair. Ask for the non-angler rate in dollars before you promise her anything.

Licenses, fish, and the stuff you'll get wrong once

Buy your license online before you leave, print it, and put the paper in a plastic bag. Cell service at the lodge is a rumor and state fish and game websites aren't built for a 3G signal on a dock.

Ask about the annual versus the short-term license. On a five-day trip in some states the seven-day nonresident tag costs nearly what the annual does, and if you're going back you may as well buy the year.

For getting fish home, the questions are: what's the legal possession limit, do they pack it in wax boxes, is there a freezer, and will a checked cooler survive the flight. A frozen, taped, vacuum-packed box in a hard cooler generally flies fine as checked baggage. Fresh fish and a connecting flight is how people end up throwing away forty pounds of walleye in an airport parking lot.

What I'd do differently

I'd stop buying the longest package available. Four fishing days is plenty. By day five most people are tired, the arms hurt, and the water has stopped being new. Book four, spend the money you saved on a private guide instead of a shared boat, and you'll catch more fish and remember them better.

I'd also admit the obvious trade-off. For a lot of trips, a clean motel in a fishing town plus two guided days booked directly with a local outfitter costs half what a lodge does and puts you on the same water. You lose the lodge dinner, the fire, the other guys telling stories. Some years that's exactly what you're paying for. Some years it isn't.

Call the lodge. Not the email form. Ten minutes on the phone with somebody who's actually on the property will tell you more than the entire website, and if nobody picks up in three tries, that's your answer too.