Itinerary

Met Dad & Sister in Miami. Traveled on to Guatemala City and then on to Sailfish Oasis lodge.

Day 1: Great breakfast at the lodge, followed by a short 5-minute van ride to the boat, and off we go to find the fish. Great day of fishing with double-digit sailfish raised and a good number caught as well as a number of dorados, enough for lunch and dinner for all. The boat heads home and I’m off for a nice swim and great dinner at the lodge

Day 2: Sailfishing was a bit slow to start, but the dorado fishing was off the hook and we filled the ice box with food for all.

Day 3: We had a good morning sailfish bite, with us releasing close to 10 fish before 1pm or before lunch of fresh grilled dorado was brought out. Just before lunch got out the door, the captain spotted Spinner Dolphin, spinning, and a huge flock of birds working ahead. He shouted out, “want to catch a few tunas”? To which I responded “Hell Yah”!.

We pulled the baits just ahead of the dolphins, and BAM, we had two football tunas. Next, we switched up to larger 50-wide reels and matching rods. got in just ahead of the dolphins again, missed a fish and then a great bite and hook up on the other rod. Another tuna in the boat. We have plenty of fish for sushi. We all agreed on one last pass. Got to the same area and another strong bite, line peeling off the reel. The skipper kept going for a bit to see if we could get another one more to bite. I on the other hand was losing line at a rate of knots and started to see the backing peaking out from under the main line on the spool.

At this point, the skipper had completed the circle and we were running toward the fish so I was able to get back some line. Once we were on top of the fish, we started to realize the power this beast had. It made a number of good runs straight down whenever it wanted. I started to inch the drag up on to the strike button and beyond. Didn’t change a thing, the fish still went down when it wanted. The one thing it did change was my arms were on fire, only twenty minutes in. We carefully switched me over to a stand-up rig, which was a huge improvement.

I started to get on top of the fish and move it up towards us. It was a slow and painful (for me anyway) process with me taking in three or so feet of line and the fish then taking back out two or so.

After about an hour of back and forth between us, I was able to sneak in a few sips of coke and a longing look at the beautiful dorado lunch that I hadn’t been able to eat. Another half an hour in, fish in good circles and me with arms aching, legs shaking, and feeling out of breath.

At a little over the 2hr mark I hit the wall and tapped out. Skipper Chris, agreed to jump in. On taking over the rod and a fighting belt, he was like, yikes you have some drag on this. We switched him over to the standup rig and he put the heat on the fish. It wasn’t much longer till we saw color and the size of the fish.

I guess the fish saw the boat and decided he didn’t want to be anywhere near it. So with a flick of its tail, it peeled a good chunk of line, along with a good chunk of hard profanity from captain Chris.

Chris went back to putting the heat on the fish again and shortly had it in tight circles under the boat. Now the dangerous part, getting it close enough to gaff, but not cutting it off on the boat.

A couple of circles near the boat, then it was nearly all over, the line got caught in one of the trim tabs. The mate was super quick with the gaff and was able to untangle it. A few more circles and again it got hooked up in the trim tab and again mate detangled.

Finally fish came alongside close enough for us to get a gaff into it.

Emilio got a hook into it and then the fun really started. He was screaming to get another hook into it, I grabbed a gaff and almost hooked the tail as I’ve seen in “Wicked Tuna” when I realized that I needed to be in the head. I got my hook in and we had a better hold, but still didn’t have the fish. Chris got another gaff into the fish and then we all tried to heave it in. Try 1, no go. try 2 no go. try 3, fish started to inch into the boat, got it over the tipping point and with a big wham it’s in the cockpit.

The wack of the deck must have told the fish that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore and it went crazy. Graffs went flying, people went flying and the fish started beating it’s tail with the goal of getting away. The fish was so strong you could feel each wack of its tail throughout the boat.

The crew and I finally had a chance to catch our breath and measure the fish. I think it was 75 inches long by an I don’t remember the girth, but it was a lot. The net, the fish estimate was 270+, the largest yellowfin the boat had ever taken.

Day 4, yes we went out again, and again we caught tuna, though smaller we still caught one over a hundred pounds, instead of almost 3 hrs, it took me just 15 minutes. Amazing how different fish can be. It probably helped that I had the drag up to eleven and didn’t let the fish build up a head of steam.

We ended up releasing double-digit sailfish and caught a dorado or two to boot.

The next day we headed back to Guatemala City via a lunch stop in Antigua and on to home.

Another great trip with great team at Sailfish Oasis.

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So another amazing trip with the Sailfish Oasis team, including well over 400lbs of tuna caught!