Exceptional fishing through March 2nd

Since the last fish report (14th Feb) through to the 25th the bait stuck around. We pretty much fished it from the west all the way accross the bottom of the pocket and inshore to the east, it was moving a couple of miles to the east every day and the current picked up 25th and with it the bait moved out. It was an incredible bite, and wherever the shearwaters were picking and diving there would be wads of bait and sails cutting though feeding and balling the bait up. The mornings were a bit slow though late afternoon with the breeze chopping up the water the fish turned on and bit very aggressively. On the 23rd there was an exceptional late afternoon bite which we were a few miles off-shore of and missed out on, though the 31ft Jupiter released 22 sails in the last 2 hours of the day including a quad and three triples. We were releasing 20 to 30+ sails daily and getting into some nice dorado as well for the whole time we fished that body of fish and bait.
On the 27th we fished all the way from Old Blighty (England) Tim and Catherine Peat from Hampshire and Ted and Muffy Maltby from Bath. The couples are very keen flyfisher's having travelled some of the worlds hot-spots for salmon, bonefish, permit etc. They had been skunked on a previous attempt at billfish on the fly in another sailfish 'hotspot' so decided on Guatemala to fulfill their goal. On the first day out the fish were out wide to the west at 40NM, we had heard reports of lazy fish that were hard to tease so we trolled to the east where we found a good bite with every other fish seeming to tease well. The group fished well and if it wasn't for 3 popped tippets while going for doubles the ratio would have been alot better. Still it was a good introduction with 36 sails being raised and releasing 6 from 12 bites all on the fly.

Tim Peat with one of the first days fly caught sailfish.
On the second day out, the 28th, we had a cold front push through with a stiff east nor easter blowing up to 20+knts and 4-6 ft seas. We ran up the beach to the east and then straight out where we could troll in relative comfort down-sea. It was the right move and we had good steady action all day with the afternoon really heating up and the fish biting the fly very aggressively. In the morning it was a little tough in the conditions and Muffy spent just under an hour on a big stubborn sail with-out giving up before getting the release. Good work Muffy...It was a great day with 44 sails raised, 19 bites and 10 releases. They all fished well and a double late in the day really had the adrenaline levels up with Teds fish going beserk jumping accross Tims, quick thinking saw the lines uncrossed and the release of both.

On the groups last day out we started where we had finished the day before to find colder, green water. After spending most of the morning searching we ended with the fleet 40NM out again and into some very funky fish that would tease most of the way in before fading, or all the way in only to eye-ball the fly. It was frustrating stuff raising 36 sails of which only 7 bit the fly and a bit of bad luck saw us releasing just 2 of those. The highlight of the day was Muffy Maltby getting on to a horse of a sail, a nice one of around 120+lbs, excellent work. We had alot of fun fishing with Peat/Maltby group and hope to see them back here in the not-too-distant future....

Muffy Maltby with her big fly caught fish.

On the 1st March we saw the return of Guatemala regulars John Theuerkauf and Zac Brice, this time bringing along billfish newcomer Steve Glanell. We ran to where we had seen alot of fish the previous day, and now fishing the baits had high expectations. The fish however did a disappearing act on us and on top of that I couldn't seem to run over the ones that were left. We didn't see alot so it was tough to shake the rust off seeing it had been a year since the guys had baited billfish. Still we raised 16 getting 4 from 10 bites and a nice dorado. The next day we were on to them and had good action right through the day at around 25NM off the breakwall. It took till the afternoon for the averages to start swinging around, though by the days end they were all back into it and fishing well releasing 16 from 33 bites and getting 47 fish into the spread. We're looking forward to seeing you guys back down here next year......