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Not only Sailfish fishing in Guatemala

By Kevin Styles

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 03Nov2009 Word count: 534 Viewed: 306 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The "shoulders" of this season - so November/December and again in March/April tend to be when we see the best and most consistent marlin bite (predominantly Blue marlin, but also catching blacks at times).

Of course there is variation around these generalities - in fact the marlin bite does seem to be improving each year for the last several years - for the most recent season 2008/9, there was hardly a day went by when the fleet did not catch at least one good sized marlin, and typical days most boats would raise at least one marlin.

Often what has raised the most excitement on slow days has been finding debris and getting out the superlight tackle to target dolphin/Mahi for sport and the table. These fish are harvested commercially in the region, but they make excellent sportfish as well.

They are among the fasting growing animals in the world - reaching sexual maturity in as little as 3 months (although 4-5 is normal............must be a bar joke in there somewhere?), and essentially consume everything and anything that they come across. They put on body mass at an extraordinary rate, reaching the 6lb mark in less than a year and more than tripling in size over the course of the next 12 months. They make great light tackle sport fish, as they will have hatched underneath floating debris or weed, and can be teased out to turn a bite into a feeding frenzy - holding the school close to the back of the boat to facilitate superlight tackle or fly is the way to go.

When you are wondering where they all came from - consider that having reached sexual maturity (at 4-5 months), they typically spawn every 6 weeks and release up to half a million eggs that start to hatch after a couple of days............and start to feed voraciously ! The corollary of this means that even with the commercial fishing in the area, we are not shy about trying to catch Dorado on the way out to the fishing grounds to make cerviche for a late morning snack - and to have some good fillets left for a great meal in the evening.

Yellowfin tuna are also quite abundant in the coastal waters within sixty miles during these "shoulder" periods of November/December and April/May.

They are usually found - or at least located - under a school of spinner dolphin. The dolphin (Stenella longirostris or long-nose dolphin) are quite abundant in the region, although their numbers have been declining because of the effects of longlining and netting for tuna.

The dolphin cluster in large pods ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand.

It is not clearly understood why they choose to perform such acrobatics, and it is not always the case that there are tuna beneath them - but it is always a spectacle to watch while trolling along in the deep blue water - with the prospect of 20-50lb tuna hitting the lures at any time!

The tuna are also pelagic, roaming the open seas in search of clean water and food - and although not always accompanied by dolphin, this is the easiest and most reliable way to visually target a potentially productive piece of water.

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