The Thompson boys arrived in Guatemala May 25th for a couple of days fishing Guatemalan style, they ended up with more on their plates than just the fishing to think about though with Volcan Pacaya erupting and sending enough ash toward Guatemala City to close down the Airport, and then came Tropical Storm Agatha.........
Still it was all good for the crew from Beaumont, Texas. Skylar Thompson came down with son's David, Neil and Heath for a planned 2 day fishing excursion that turned into 3 days due to the unexpected eruption of Pacaya.
On the 26th we started fishing about 16NM from the Marina Pez Vela on the western side of the pocket and felt pretty lonely out there with just one other boat out that day. The day was overcast though no rain and a wind-swell over the top of a SW ground-swell making for a slightly confused sea though nothing too bad so fairly ideal conditions, not too hot and beautiful blue water. Working our way up the side of the pocket we found some fish about 21NM out and fished the area hard all day getting into a good steady bite. The guys did well for first time blue water fisherman and from the 17 sails raised that day they released 10 from 15 bites. A helluva start! Next day had the same sea conditions though there was a lot of rain off-shore, especially to the west where we fished the previous day. Seeing that we started to the east a little at the bottom of the pocket just 9NM off the break wall and after a short time we got into the mahimahi's pretty good, the bite lasted over an hour and the guys boated 25 mahimahi/dorado for the day. After the mahi fest we jumped a blue marlin of around 200+lbs, released 4 sails and then finished the day with a few more mahimahi.
On the way in that afternoon the Volcanoes were clear apart from Pacaya which had a huge dark, bulbous cloud hanging over it, we thought it was a thunder head......little did we know. After dinner that night we found out that Pacaya had blown big time and the Airport had been closed. With a couple of days good fishing under the belt the guys decided to make the most of ill-fortune and fish another day.
We'd been watching a system brewing off the Southern coast of Mexico for the past few days and before leaving that morning we checked again to see that it was slowly moving our way and had a 60% chance of turning into a tropical storm.....
All good out there though as the system was still off-shore, more wind chop over ground swell made seas sloppy with intermittent showers. We started out late and worked the bottom of the pocket hard hoping for another marlin bite, it didn't come and the sailfish bite was slow as well with 2 released form 3 bites, we finished the day with another mahimahi flurry ensuring the guys went home with a soft cooler bag full of fillets on ice.
Tropical Storm Agatha was born out of the system that day and the rain set in hard that Friday evening after fishing. The Thompson boys got out to El Salvador OK the next morning though and made their flight home, albeit a couple of days overdue. Luckily for them as the storm hit hard, dumping as much as 3-4ft of rain in some areas over just a 32 hour period. Thankfully for us here the storm banked west and the rain stopped on Sunday morning, though in that short time the storm caused a huge amount of damage, washing away over 14 bridges, many roads and hundreds of houses in the highlands were swamped in mud. Many lost everything and as of yesterday more than 170 deaths have been confirmed. Everyone is pitching in and helping though it will take some time to recover for many highland towns. We came through it all unscathed at the Sailfish Oasis and are helping where we can, especially in some of the pueblos near Antigua where it sorely needed.
As for the fishing, with reasonably settled weather since the storm some big current lines with logs and trash have developed, meaning plenty of mahi's congregating on them and there the food chain carries on......
We are starting to get inquiries for July and August so contact us for these traditionally drier months and good fishing.
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