It's the slow time of year for us here in Guatemala and you'd really have to question why with generally great settled weather on the coast and good fishing to boot. When you are the only boat out there it can take a little time to get on to the fish though overall the fishing has been steady:
27th-28th July was our first day out in a while and it did take us a while to get into some action with ALLURE owners Hill Dishman and Craig Johnson on board with friend Richard Bowman for 2 days of fishing. A couple of runs further to the west got us into some sail action with 7 sails raised for the day and 3 releases from 5 bites along with a 15lb dorado. The following day was more of the same weather wise, beautiful flat seas and blue skies though an improvement in the fishing now knowing the west was more productive. We had steady action through the day raising 16 sailfish and getting 7 releases from 13 bites,a yellow-fin tuna, 2 big 30lb+ bull mahi-mahi and a blue marlin at the end of the day for Craig Johnson capped off a great day on the water.
30th-31st July. Local Antiguan Jeremy Scott took his Grandfather Dan Scott and Aunty Risa from Wyoming for a couple of days off-shore fishing on ALLURE along with local friends from Cafe No Se Mike Tallon and Thor....Again the weather was perfect and the first fish for the day was a est 300lb blue marlin hot on the bridge teaser, an aggresive bite on the pitched mackeral resulted in a solid hook-up for birthday girl Risa. This was one of the tougher 300lb blues I've seen here, with the drag pushed up to 'sunset' after 15mins the line was pinging off the reel. They breed them tough in Wyoming though and Risa did a superb job releasing the blue in just under an hour on the stand-up gear.
The rest of the day saw steady sailfish action with 16 sails in the spread releasing 10 from 12 bites with another smaller blue under 200lb up at the end of the day. The following day saw a change in the weather with an ENE wind making conditions a little sloppy and overcast. The sailfish action was great though with 11 releases from 17 bites.
Jeremy with his Grandfather Dan Scott and a double of sailfish prior to release on their last day out.
The days following this produced steady blue marlin action for the boats out there with boats on the 4th raising up to 3 blues a piece, with the marlin bite going on Rob and Bess Wilson along with son Joe decided to try their luck on the 7th and 8th of August. On the first morning a small blue of around 140lb crashed the Ilander/ballyhoo combo though didn't stick and didn't come back. The rest of the day was fairly slow, pulling marlin plugs we raised 9 sails and got baits back to a few of them releasing 3. The next day we concentrated our efforts on the corner out to the west releasing 3 sails from 3 bites and getting an aggresive 200lb blue up at the end of the day. We got the bite on the pitched mackeral though a bit of bad luck saw it come un-stuck after the first jump, a dissapointing way to finish though we look forward to seeing the Wilsons back in the near future......
Another big Guatemalan sailfish about to be released
Not many boats have been out since the 8th though the blue water has pushed in to just 6NM off the beach and the Jupiter has been making the most of the great mahi-mahi fishing with all the logs and current lines just off-shore. Ron Parker and family had a great time on the 31' Jupiter catching 12 big dorado and a couple of sailfish in just a half day on the color change. The Jupiter and ALLURE are both available at great summer-time rates for either inshore or offshore excursions. The fishing is great as always in Guatemala and has to be experienced to be believed. Contact Rods and Reels Sportfishing to secure a trip.
