Great fishing through 5th January

We had the week off from the 20th of December though the fishing was great right up to 24th and the 26th with the boats that did fish releasing 20-30+ sailfish and a few marlin seen as well. Since the 27th we have been fishing and the action has been steady with good fishing all round and some great days as well. Today we were called in from the west to the bottom eastern corner of the pocket by some of the fleet who had found some pretty good action. Guatemala is great like that, there are no secrets and everybody shares information, we trolled over the bottom of the pocket and sure enough there was bait and birds working the east side, mahi's were feeding on the surface and sails free jumping with regularity. On ALLURE we saw about a 30lb bull mahi mahi jumping with exhaustion as a 500lb+ marlin chased it down and after several attempts engulfed the worn out mahi. What a sight! We rigged up a 15lb mahi as live bait soon after with no luck though crushed the sails in the afternoon as we got into the bite. After lunch, just before 1300 we had just 5 sailfish releases and by lines out at before 1600 we had released 30 sails from 48 bites and boated a couple of nice mahi mahi with the Thomas Stephenson group from Wyoming. The other boats working the same area raised a few blues though none were released, let's hope they are a bit more aggresive in the spread tomorrow. The boats that ended up way out to the west experienced some reasonable blue marlin fishing though less sailfish action. This has how things have panned out the last week or so:

Mike Marshall into a blue on ALLURE.
January 2nd through 4th we hosted the Pacific Fins based 'Chesapeak' group with 3 rotating anglers for the 3 days. This group normally fish Cabo San Lucas, though with the great accomodations and hospitality, not to forget the incredible fishing, have decided to re-book Guatemala as their annual fishing trip. On ALLURE alone 35 sails from 51 bites were released along with some big mahi's to 30lbs boated. The action was about the same accross the board for the other boats with the exception of a 250lb blue released by the Captain Hook.


Photo by Mike Shores of Toby Solis' live-bait caught marlin.

December 30th-Jan 1st ALLURE shareowner Hill Dishman was joined by his wife Donelle and their friends. The fishing was great with 14 releases out of 21 bites on day one. The group started on the Jupiter on the 31st getting a couple of sails and finished the day on ALLURE, we left the dock at 1330 and fished just 5NM off the beach releasing 4 sails and boating a nice mahi. On our last day out the fishing picked up off-shore with 17 out of 21 bites. After spending New Years Eve on the coast enjoying an incredible firework dispaly the group finished up in Antigua for a great dinner at Panza Verde and the beautiful accomodations of Vista Real. Antigua has to be experienced while on any fishing trip to Guatemala!
January 2nd and 3rd, Hill Dishman, after deciding to stay on a couple more days, fished solo with Capt/Mate Richard Bowan on the 31ft Jupiter had a great time releasing 5 from 7 in close and out wide on the edge 12 sailfish from 14 bites respectively....good numbers.

December 27th and 28th ALLURE co-owner Craig Johnson introduced his family to Guatemala for a couple of days of great fishing. On day one after a late start the group enjoyed typical Guatemalan conditions, flat seas and plenty of billfish action! 13 sails released from 20 bites and some mahi's to boot. The next day on ALLURE we stayed in a bit closer as the bite from the previous day moved further off-shore. There were a bunch of big mahi's caught today with 8 from 12 bites, all the fish were in the 20lb to 30lb weight range! They also released 9 from 12 sailfish bites before hitting the dock early.