Bruce W and three friends from Antigua joined Capt. Jonathan Nicholas, mates Jimmy and Sergio on board ‘Reel Escape’ a 31ft Bertram for a one day charter, though Bruce has fished before in other places, he had never used circle hooks, and to my complete horror assured me not to worry because he was a good Bass Fisherman. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to use circle hooks, repeatedly striking the fish by lifting the rod once the line has come tight is NOT the way to do it.
After a short fifteen mile run, I explained to Bruce that I would like to pull a few plugs (artificials) in stead of baits to start off with, this allowed me to bump up my trolling speed to 9 knots enabling us to cover more ground as I had not been out in over a week and wanted to see if we could find a bite a bit closer in as the fleet had been working a area some thirty + miles offshore.
Twenty minutes later the right short went down, and Bruce had his first Pacific Sailfish on, in short order we had the fish alongside the boat and as I looked down I was surprised by her size, most sails here run 75-90lbs with a large fish topping the 100lb mark, this fish was every bit of 140lbs. A ‘Moose’ even for Guatemalan standards, an hour later Jimmy came up and pointed out an area some three hundred yards to port saying that he had seen a large splash, he thought could be a marlin. Oh boy talk about surprises, as I turned towards the spot that had been pointed out, both Jimmy and I could see the water boiling, like small baitfish being chased to the surface, this would appear then disappear at regular intervals, both of us speculating what type of bait this could be when a finely we came close enough to tell that they were. Small brown rays, the thing that got our blood pumping was the three hundred pound marlin that was feeding on them, what a sight, I watched in awe as this fish came up and swallowed a ray 15ft from the boat, the fish did a quick doughnut and come in for another. Where is the camera when you want it!!!!!!! What a sight, one that will rest with me for a long time to come.
The sailfish came every twenty minutes or so, nothing red hot but nice enough to keep all happy, then at 14.03 a nice Blue Marlin appeared behind my right teaser, the fish literally teased right up to the transom, Jimmy grabbed the 50lb pitch rod and placed the bait in the wake, before it had gone back a foot, the marlin inhaled it and Bruce found himself going off to the races, after a few jumps she changed direction and came grey hounding towards the boat, Bruce did great keeping everything tight during the first few jumps, then the line went slack and the fish settled a few feet off the transom, with words I can spell but won’t I told Bruce in no uncertain terms to wind as the fish was right there, up came the leader and I told Jimmy to get another jump out of her before breaking it off, with a couple of raps Jimmy found himself part of a 400lb piece of Blue Lightning. The Marlin went strait up and was eye level with me on the bridge, what a rush. Jimmy dumped the raps and the marlin grey hounded away from us, then nothing the line went slack? We pulled the leader in to find the marlin had gone through the three hundred pound mono. We had our release high fives all round, and memories of another fantastic day on the water here in Guatemala.
We ended the day with 9 sailfish released for 15 bites raising 18 fish and one Blue Marlin,
Keep it tight, until next time,
Capt. Jonathan Nicholas
Guatemala
