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Guatemala Fishing Report – December 21st 2009


'Tis the Season


For many things - but most of all 'tis the season to be grateful for what we have : family, friends, health - and of course outstanding fishing in Guatemala !!

The East coast of the US got cold-blasted this past week; record snowfall in Virginia and Washington, freezing cold and a couple of feet of snow further north in New York and Boston. It makes a beautiful landscape for those festive pictures, but once that novelty has worn off and you have to face the reality of shovelling and the ritual laying down of chemicals to break apart the ice............your mind is likely to wander to a tropical topic such as............"Wouldn't it be nice to be drinking a cold beer at the dock in Guatemala about now, having had a busy day reeling in a bunch of fish..........."

Now that's my kind of festive landscape

From here, the season (the fishing season that is) really gets into full swing. The fishing the last couple of onths has ranged from great (the Collard party raised 35 sailfish in a day 2 weeks ago) to slow going - as in a half dozen billfish raised in a day. But history says that as we move into January and February, the bite not only heats up significantly for both sailfish and marlin, it also becomes much more predictable and consistent from day to day.

With the assistance of satellite imagery (courtesy of Terrafin), we were at least able to pinpoint the most productive areas to fish - around the temperature breaks and low chlorophyl. Unfortunately recent days have been hampered by a good deal of cloud cover when the satellite has passed over, so detail and broad coverage images have been hard to come by. To see more detail of the latest SST image from Guatemala, ClICK HERE.

These areas of opportunity shifted dramatically from day to day - by as much as 35 miles - but we followed the science and generally had reasonable fishing when it was to be had. Sometimes the best water was as close as 9 miles from the dock - which makes for a nice short run and maximises the time the lines are in the water. Other times (and more often) it was lines in at `5-18 miles with the bite consistently between 20-25 miles out.

Most excitement on the dock the last week or so had been reserved for the marlin bite, which had been slow up until now - but the blue water moving in seems to have triggered the bite, with boats raising Blues most days now.

So while you are shoveling that snow, or putting on the 4th layer of clothing, think of us and consider that now is a great time to book in for a fishing trip to the calm waters and sunshine of Guatemala while we still have dates available !