During the dry season - and the height of the sailfishing season of November - May, it is highly unusual to see any problems with weather impacting the sportfishing fleet’s ability to leave the dock. Even during the wet season, the weather offshore can vary significantly to the coastal weather - but there is certainly a greater propensity for weather delays or to be “blown out” in the Summer months.

Remember however that just when the wind is providing some cooling effects while fishing - this is no time to relax the regimen of high factor sun protection……….this is a must when fishing offshore all year round in Guatemala, along with high quality sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat for screening your head.

Over 40 pages packed with information and tips on your fishing trip to Guatemala. The book is organised into 16 chapters that cover everything from fishing technique for sailfish and marlin - both flyfishing for sailfish and conventional fishing - to accommodation options, transport, tips and culture and other potential excursions.

This 40 page fishing guide is your absolutely free. Simply click on the graphic below to receive instructions on how to receive it instantly - and best of all it is absolutely free with no obligation whatsoever !

FREE Fishing guide to Guatemala

http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/2008-9_Guatemala_Fishing_Report.html

Frequently the cost of billfishing in Guatemala and other locales can become prohibitive when fishing alone. The only practical way to significantly reduce the individual cost is to find like minded fellow anglers to share a trip. This can be difficult, but Greatsailfishing is now trying to make it easy(er) – register for a trip and we will circulate dates that you can consider – if there is a match, we will attempt to “hook you up” with others and build a shared trip.

All anglers will benefit from their own bedroom (and usually a private bathroom) in one of our private villas. All meals, drinks and transfers are included.

For more and complete information visit :

http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/guatemala_fishing_sharing.html

The hooks with the “upturned beaks” - but you have to be careful not to  bury the hook eye too far into the tube for this hook design, in essence shortening the distance between the clumsy popper head and the point of the hook thus interfering with hook point to flesh contact.  That’s not a good thing, and, further to that, the hook point then tends to ride a little bit more upwards, effectively creating an even shorter gap length furthering the potential for “slipping” and missing upon using the more traditional hook setting methods.

Something learned the hard way about a sailfish and how it eats a fly - advice from another famous billfishing  captain : never, ever keep a fly in front of a sailfish, this is the fastest way to lose the attention of the fish and all of the effort teasing and reteasing will have been for nought. If you do succeed in hooking up - the prognosis is still not good, and believe me, can be extremely frustrating !

  When the cast is mis-placed into the oncoming path of the fish, always take it away and recast the fly rather than go through the inevitable frustration of another unbuttoned sailfish . . . sometimes 5 seconds into the fight, sometime 30 minutes into it, but almost always, the fish that eats that fly straight on comes undone or is bill-hooked.  This advice mind you, came after many years fly fishing for sails. If you think back to how many of your straight-on shots came undone, and the honest answer was likely, most of them. 

When the fly is eaten head on or quartering to, the best approach is to lift it up and throw it beyond the fish.  All you have to remember is to keep your line from landing on top of them or being too close to them when they turn on the fly.

More detail, information yips - and an extensive article on this and other topics can be found at :

http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/Sailfishing%20flyfishing%20technique.html

http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/weeklyfishing.htm

Latest progress - as recent as last week - was that officials from local and national fishing organizations and conservation groups met in the town hall in Puerto Jimenez to format a plan that would make the area a “marine area of responsible fishing” (AMPR). If the plan goes forward, in two-and-a-half-years  it would eliminate shrimp trawlers from the area and the main focus would be conducting biological studies and teaching gillnet fishermen how to use sustainable fishing practices.

The trawlers, gill nets and longlines collectively pose the greatest threat to the ecosystem that supports and promotes the pelagic fishery - so we regard this (or any similar !) as a step in the right direction.

The Costa Rican Federation for Fishing Tourism (FECOPT) officials presented the outline of a plan to some of the directors of the National Fisheries Institute (INCOPESCA) and members of the National Artisanal Fishing Federation. And all seemed to have one goal, removing fishing nets from the gulf.

Now for the longlines…………

Thankfully our fishing remains strong - read our latest fishing report here :

http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/weeklyfishing.htm

The crew treated it with mild interest, as it is actually not very common to see aircraft over these territorial waters, and it is certainly quite unusual to see aircraft in the skies of Guatemala except for in Guatemala City itself.

Coming back to the office, perhaps by coincidence, I picked up a newsfeed from US Southcom., or the US authority responsible for co-coordinating all military activities in the region which talked about a recent but fast developing trend for narco-trafficking in the region from Columbia up to Mexico and the USA.

A string of incidents recently made public underscores that the term “Smuggler’s Corridor” can include almost any navigable water in the Eastern Pacific.

According to a Mar. 25 Coast Guard release, on Jan. 15, the San Diego-based cutter Chase intercepted a blue, self-propelled semi-submersible vessel loaded with nearly 15,000 pounds of cocaine, approximately 150 miles northwest of the Colombia-Ecuador border.

The encounter was the third within nine days in the vicinity.

Apparently frustrated in their attempts to ship illicit cargo by land, cocaine smugglers have taken to constructing elaborate, expensive and dangerous-to-operate self-propelled semi-submersible submarines to ferry their drugs northward.

When Chase neared the 50-foot semi-submersible, all four crewmen aboard climbed out onto the sub’s deck. The men voluntarily boarded the cutter’s chase boat and appeared as though they were waiting for something to happen. It never did.   

Normally, the moment semi-submersible operators notice authorities, they begin scuttling procedures by opening specially installed valves that allow large amounts of seawater to enter the bilges. This rapid scuttling normally helps thwart prosecution by sending the evidence to the sea floor, where it is not practical to recover.

Scuttling also forces drug interdiction agents to shift their focus from recovering evidence to an often-fabricated search-and-rescue operation. As the sub sinks, crewmen usually jump overboard, which often helps buy enough time to allow the sub to sink to the bottom.

Sometimes I wish fishing was so easy………………