GREAT FISHING APRIL 10th THROUGH APRIL 30th 2015

April 25-27th it was great to see Bobby Richter down here, another return client coming back for his second trip since January, this time introducing father and son team Chuck and Chad Clark to the what we have here. Chuck and Chad are big time fly fisherman and have caught a bunch of species on the fly, billfish was on the bucket list so Bobby took them to Guate to achieve it. Our first day we got into them raising 37 sails into the spread though once again the bite to raise ratio was poor with just too much bait out there. One thing was for sure, even if the fish came in slow, when we got the bite we were in for some fireworks with the fish putting on a helluva show and going ballistic. We released 3 from 7 bites on the fly and 2 on the baits and both Chuck and Chad got to tick off billfish on the fly off the list....

Things slowed down the next day and we spent a bit of time trying to find the fish we were on in the deep water.....no one home. Back in shore a few miles there were some fish though and the ratio was a bit better today with 6 bites from the 19 sailfish raised, we released another 3 on the fly and 5 on the baits.

Working the same area on our last day out the fish had moved, we worked up the west side of the pocket, then offshore finding a few fish late in the day. We ended up with 10 in the spread releasing 1 from 2 bites on the fly and 2 on the bait. We had a great time as always with Bobby and look forward to seeing Chuck and Chad back down here soon!

April 28th through 30th it was great to see both Cammy and Shane Sigler back down here in Guatemala this time with the rest of the above crew from Seattle, Washington State area. Fishing on ALLURE II and INTENSITY with Mike Shedder the goal was to find some hungry aggressive fish that would tease in and switch to the fly. Running to the east on the first morning it looked good and it wasn't long before Cammy was letting one go from his first cast, soon after we had another good bite that didn't stick and from there on in for us it was just tough, fish teasing in half way and fading off, fish teasing in a few yards before loosing interest and very few coming in all the way. We did get another hot fish at the end of the day to bite and Billy Portuese released his first on the fly, 2 from 3 bites and 15 raised. Intensity saw the same, tough fish, they raised 17 for the day releasing 1 from 4 bites. The bites were hard to keep stuck!

The next day we ran out wide to the west, working the edge we marked plenty of bait at 600ft right on the drop off, same problem, just too much bait out there. Fishing around some spinner dolphin we managed to raise some fish and dropped one while going for the double, another couple of bites didn't stick and we got the release on 1 from 4 bites out there. Intensity got into some tunas on the plugs and a nice big 35lb bull mahi. Trolling the 'flats' on the inside in about 450ft we raised a red hot blue marlin on the bridge teaser, things happen quick when they come in on the short teasers!! We switched him off to the flat line teaser and knocked the boat out of gear, Sean made the cast and a bit of bad luck saw the bill run down the line as the fish turned. The bill rasped down the 20lb tippet damaging it and the fish shook it free, the fly came loose and the marlin ate it with a good bite then came jumping at the boat. On the first run the tippet parted and in less then a few seconds that blue was greyhounding 400yds away with the pink Cam Sigler marlin fly in its mouth....Still pretty cool to see all that right behind the boat, there was some adrenaline pumping down there. About 20mins later we raised another blue on the flat line teaser, the fish disappeared then came back on the rigger teaser. The mates did an awesome job getting that fish in, slow and steady right to the back of the boat, neutral, Billy cast, the fish turned and ate that blue and white Cam Sigler marlin fly going away. Perfect. On the first run, in a straight line behind the boat about 70yds out with very little drag on the reel the tippet popped......the odds are stacked against you in the fly game and maybe the tippet raked down the body/gill plate, who knows, it came back a clean break.

We worked the flats the next day in search of another blue in the morning though moved offshore before too long after Intensity found some fish straight out in the deep water. We finished our day out there and finally the bite to raise ratio was pretty good for both boats with Intensity getting 10 bites from 20 sails raised and on Allure II we got 7 bites from 18 sails raised. A nice way to see they guys off with some good bites on the fly...

About to get the fly back....

And some good feedback from Cammy, who understands fishing....

Just wanted to thank you for a great time last week. Lodge is terrific and staff and food first class. Fishin was tough but that's fishin. All the guys had a great time and we will be back. My goal was to get all of them a release and we did that.

The boats that were out there fishing conventional the next day got into them pretty good in the same area, they turned on big time over the weekend with some big numbers posted by the boats. Looks like the bait dried up and fish are snapping.....The fishing is by no means over, we fished right through the summer months last year and averaged just under 10 releases a day with our best day being 22, a good ratio of blue marlin per days fished, best day 5 blues raised and plenty of big XOS mahi's with some tunas out wide all over the summer months. We are here and ready to fish! There are some good deals to be had from here through November so get in touch with us to get into it.

Contact:

liz@sailfishoasissportfishing.com