Guatemala Dec 11th-16th '09

Jean Mark "Giallo" as the sun sets on a great day off-shore fishing aboard "ADIOS"

December 16th and we had the UN aboard ADIOS with Jean Mark "Giallo" representing Europe/Guatemala, Javier Burga from Peru and Craig Jull from New Zealand joining us on an off-shore excursion in the hunt for yellow-fin tunas. Things looked promising from the get go when we found a small group of white belly dolphin working bait. Tunas were busting on the bait though not the size we were hoping and we caught a 25lb tuna and about a 30lb mahi-mahi off them. From there we covered area and near the end of the day had good action raising 11 sailfish, releasing 6 from 7 bites, we also missed a stripped marlin, raised a good sized blue that didn't bite and caught 6 yellow-fin tunas off a small group of spinner dolphin. A great day on the water on the go fast ADIOS, a 38' Jupiter with triple 250HP 4 stroke Yamaha's. The perfect boat to get out to the deep water fast and enjoy more fishing time in the day.

December 13th-15th. Welcome back to Guatemala Carl Lehner, this time joined by his lovely wife Sandra for 3 days of fly-fishing aboard ALLURE. The fishing was kind of slow, especially for December which has been traditionally one of the better months of the year. Carl continued on his good form from his last trips down though, missing very few fish on the fly, day one we raised 12 sails got 5 of them to tease in and bite the fly and Carl released 4. With 2 of these fish being on the + side of a 100lb's it was a good start to the trip.

Carl Lehner with the smaller of the 2 big girls for the day.
On the 14th we returned to the same area about 35NM off-shore though it was tough today, we raised 6 sails and teasing them in was hard work, we did manage to get 2 bites and released 1 on the fly. Hard work for the whole fleet today with beautiful water though not much going on anywhere.
15th we ran to the middle of the pocket and covered as much area as we could. It paid off and in the latter part of the day we raised a couple of doubles, some red hot fish that you love to see while on the fly and Carl had another great day with the averages going 2 from 3 out of the 7 sails raised. Sandra got into the action today releasing her first sailfish on the fly as well. Kind of slow, though still better than most destinations in the world with 25 sails raised and 7 released from 10 bites. Carl and Sandra had a great stay here in Guatemala, enjoying the first class facilities and a wonderful last night at Antigua's El Convento and we hope to see them back in the near future. Thanks for the e-mail Carl:

Dear Chris and Liz
Sandra and I had a great time. The new Lodge was great, it was a delightful, private, quiet tropical retreat. The food was wonderful, probably the best I've ever had one of these trips. The fishing was a bit slow but Chris managed to find the fish nonetheless, and I believe we were the top boat at least two out of the three days we fished. Chris has a great crew, they do all the real work. All I had to do was throw out the flies and then hang on for the ride. BTW Sailfish are wonderful, they are the only fish I know it will throw a fly and then go back and take it again while you reel it in.
Thanks again for a great trip,
best regards,
Carl and Sandra

December 11th and 12th welcomed back regular Chief Tauzin with guests Andre Fuetch and for his second visit to Guatemala Josh Fink. Our first day with them could only be described as a day of two halves, before lunch we raised 8 sails and released 0 from 6 bites. You'd hope that things could only get better, and after a great fresh mahi mahi burger for lunch, things did with the guys releasing 6 from 7 bites in the afternoon session to save the day. Nice comeback!!
On the 12th we went out wide and after a slow morning came across one of the biggest groups of spinner dolphin that I have seen out here, there were spinners from horizon to horizon and we soon came to an area where the group tightened and the birds working. From there on in was pretty much non-stop yellow-fin tuna action and with 14 tunas aboard we decided enough, rigging the last 2 as live-baits we tried for a marlin for sometime as to the west of us on another group of spinners Capt "Haole" Chris Sheeder witnessed a blue marlin tossing around a small yellow-fin before engulfing it. No luck for us though and we went back to trying to catch out first sail for the day. We ended up raising 6 sails, releasing 1 from 5 bites and plenty of fresh sashimi aboard.

Andre Fuetch and Josh Fink.

The last day out there on ADIOS was promising with plenty of life seen at the end of the day, most boats headed where we were on Thursday and encountered marlin and had better action on the sails as well. Things are on the turn here and we are looking forward to fishing straight after Christmas and through into the New Year. Happy Holidays to everyone, and get in touch with us if you have any queries at all.
Kiwi

Fishing Report Dec 4th-7th

Flat seas and great fishing has been the theme here in Guatemala the past few days, both Adios and Allure were out there. On Allure we hosted Dave Valtierra's fishing show 'Inshore Fishing with Super Dave', who broke away from the inshore fishing to experience some great offshore action for 3 days.

First up on the 7th we fished with part of a group traveling Central America who stopped in Guatemala for a few days, Scott Emery, Dallas Davidson, Nick Wright and Chris King joined us for one day of fishing. Chris King organizes the big money tournaments Sailfish Cup and World Championship out of the Miami Beach and the Key West every year. It was a late start for the group who flew in late the night before, we left the dock at 0900 and after running 24NM to the SE put lines in at 1000. It wasn't long before the action started with the fish mostly coming up in multiples, only 4 singles out of the 17 releases from 21 bites, the rest in doubles, a triple and a quad. We also boated 3 nice mahi-mahi before pulling lines in early a little after 2pm and heading back to the dock. A great day out for the guys and congratulations to Nick who not only caught his first ever sailfish, though 2nd through 5th as well....

Dec 4th-6th we had a group of 9 staying down at the Sailfish Oasis enjoying the great setting and food along with awesome fishing. Both boats were out, on Adios owner Craig Johnson was joined by friends Don Milner, Steve Goodchild and Chris Collins, on Allure, as previously mentioned we fished with Dave Valtierra and his camera crew and co host Leroy Gonzales and Tony De Hoyos III along with Allure co-owner Hill Dishman.
First day out Adios ran out wide finding green water before heading back in and to the east, they eventually found a great bite about 33NM from the marina and had steady action for the rest of the day releasing 18 from 22 bites from the 26 raises and a nice 30lb mahi. On Allure we found a few fish to the east though 14NM out and although hearing the better action out wide elected to stay with the pick that we were on and it paid off, a few misses has to be expected with the sharp learning curve though the crew got some great footage, both above and below the water with 11 releases from 21 bites and a nice mahi.

With all the great conventional action from the previous day we changed to the fly and returned to the same area, after a quick briefing on how it is done on the fly we raised a red hot double, Dave hooked the first and mate Alex the second, both on the fly.....a great start! From there on in the fish were a little finiky and we tried on the fly though pitched baits back to the ones that wouldn't tease. Still a great day with 24 raised and 4 from 7 on the fly and 7 from 10 on the baits. There were a lot of fish around today on the surface tailing in pairs and groups though very hard to get them into the spread. Adios made the most of the ones that came in releasing 8 from 15 bites.
Things slowed some the last day, a small front pushed through making a chop on the water and the boats spread out looking as the fish seemed to have gone down. Adios went west and off-shore and ended with 4 from 5 bites, on Allure we stuck with the fly and east, though heading off-shore more than the previous days, it was a slow start for us though the afternoon picked up, we raised 12 sails, though getting them to tease and bite the fly was hard work, we did release 1 from 3 on the fly and 3 from 4 on the bait as we pitched back again to the lazy ones. A great trip was had by all and the camera crew were excited by all the footage accumulated over the 3 days, all commented on the outstanding facilities and food at Sailfish Oasis and we are all looking forward to the up-coming season. The fishing picked up again on Monday as previously mentioned and is good out there right now.
We still have openings so get in touch for the trip of a lifetime on either of our boats and a great stay at Sailfish Oasis....