PK
03-03-2008, 11:59 AM
thought I might post this.. like anyone gives a hoot.. we went on a 30 day cruise starting Jan 25th from Ft Laud thru the Canal to San Diego and did the return trip ending in Ft Laud on Feb 24th.. burp..burp.... different itinerary each way except for Cabo and Cartegena on both ends of the cruise..
anyway... here's where I fished and what I caught..booked them all thru the ship to assure that I'd get back in time for the ship's sailing..
fished Half Moon Cay, Bahamas on the first day out of Ft Laud.. that's Holland America's private island in the central Bahamas right across from the southern tip of Eleuthera... overnite those were the ruffest seas on the entire trip.. 12-14 down to 8-10''.. and yop I was out in the latter that morning..weeee..... fished there numerous times before .. usually get mahi ..cudas.. tuna.. this time.. only a bunch of medium sized cudas...
this was the first time I've been back 'cruisin' the Pacific since April-1967- when I went on my first 'cruise' ever.. from Oakland Army Terminal in SF Bay to Vietnam.. 22 days of not fun..it was FREE.. 'as in if it's FREE it's for me..but never had a Lido deck with 'grand boo-fays'
the next fishing charter I had booked was in Acapulco .. just two of us from the ship.. I got a 90# Sailfish.. let the other guy miss three hookups.. they were using regular J-hooks...and before I had the chance to make sure they were catch and release the mate bopped the Sail on the head and kept it.. hay.. I was in their land so had no choice..not happy... it was supposed to be C&R fishing that day.. had a few small bonitas ..nothing else good thru the trolling spread..
my next charter was in Cabo San Lucas.. what a beautiful scenic place.. outrageous raw beauty.. damn did I say that.. anyway we headed out.. five of us.. saw one marlin into the spread.. the mate pitched out a live large bait.. damn thing wouldn't take it.. he played with it and spit it away... NO fish caught at all.. in one of the premiere fishing spots.. did see plenty of whales.. I'd say in the hundreds.. not kidding.. water temps around 68-70*.. after the Marlin came thru the spread damn whales followed..pics to show them in the spread and next to the boat.. zippo on anything caught.. which was my biggest disappointment of any of the places I fished..
after hitting San Diego for that one day.. the ship just does a turnaround day .. leaves that same afternoon and start heading south again.. sure did get 'kewl' coming up that upper baja coast.. got into SD and it was 53* in the early morning hours
back in Cabo again two days later.. our schedule arrival was at 11am so after not catching a damn thing.. same as most others AI spoke to who did charters that day..I decided not to fish the second go round at Cabo...
next fishing stop was the next day in Mazatlan.. never got a hit .. the entire fleet of 25 boats caught one itty bitty striped marlin that I saw being taken off the boat in the marina.. a total bust.. they too also tout themselves as greatest fishing place.... I hope Zane does better than I did here..
overall Mexico didn't show me too much with its fishing.. I'm determined to get back to Cabo to give it another try( March 2009).. it's too pretty there not to catch fish there..
okay.. here goes.. Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.. I get off our ship at 730am..walked over next door to the fishing marina.. they have two boats ready for our charters from the ship....Dockmaster said to me.. "you're gonna catch and see more sailfish than you've ever seen before"..I laughed....
all I can say is.. what a day.. two young mates and a Captain.. hmmm.. why do they need two mates I said to myself.... more hmmmmm??...it took us about an hour to run out to the Sailfish grounds.. about 20 miles out.. we started trolling about 845 or so...I asked the Captain how deep.. 300' to a dropoff of near 1K' further out.. we got the first hits in the fleet of 16 boats.. he radioed over to the rest as they w*rk together like most fleets do...
well it was world class fishing.. 30' smaller boat compared to some of the other boats around there.. 5 anglers fishing.. we raised 27 Sailfish.. caught 15 onto the boat.. 3 for each of us.. saw 3 Marlin into the spread.. no hits though on the marlin as the mates put out the bigger rigs...seemed like at times there were Sailfish free-jumping everywhere...the entire crew w*rked their butts off.. plus they fed us( this is also good!).. homemade hero 'sammiches'.. fresh fruit that was outrageously good...as much as we wanted.. we only fished for 4 1/2 hours.. as the ship was sailing early at 3pm.. had to be back onboard at 230.. we had about an hour left but we all agreed and decided to go back a bit early as each of us had an equal amount of Sails landed.. biggest fish landed was by the smallest guy on our boat 150#.. he weighed 155#.. the damn fish was really bigger than him..what a fishery.. a small sleepy fishing town along the Guatemala coast.. great day.. had a blast...ALL were CATCH and RELEASE.. ONLY CIRCLE hooks used.. ..they say the Sailfish in the Pacific are bigger than the Atlantic-Florida Sailfish.. from what I've seen that is very true.. I'm sure there are better or equal places to go Sailfishing down that way like Costa Rica and Panama.. but I haven't found them yet
I saw the Dockmaster after we returned.. had to tell him he was 'right on'.. he laughed and said.. " I told you".. a good guy..
here's the Puerto Quetzal-album with some of the pics from that day.... you can see the circle hook rigs/bait .. and there is even a short video I took showing how they rigged them.. the trolling speed and the spread.... as well as some of the Sails we all caught that day.. I'm on page 2 and page 5...
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/562633744msbBnV
(click on the image)
http://thumb1.webshots.net/t/52/652/4/73/55/2476473550049937141OchCEu_th.jpg (http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2476473550049937141OchCEu)
we have plans to go back to do this cruise again hopefully next March... a really great trip that was made even better by a great day of fishing.. it doesn't take much to make me happy..
oh.. forgot to mention before the 'Jaxsonville stallion' ask'es'es me.. how much weight did I gain.. surprisingly.. after getting back home I jumped on the digital scale the next morning.. 9 1/2 #'s.. I was shocked.. and especially very very very happy after 30 days of oink oink eating
here's all 9 albums I've uploaded so far to Webshots...have some more stops I have to add
http://community.webshots.com/user/stakeouttoo
each day is labeled.. just click on an album pic.. then you'll see multiple pages for each album.. rather than clicking each pic you can do a 'slideshow'.. link at both the upper right in the yellow box as well as beneath the album pics.. if you put your cursor over a pic in the slideshow and move it to the very bottom of the pic you'll see a popup bar to adjust the slideshow.. speed.. fwd/back. etc..
I took a total of 4778 pics on the trip..yop.. 4778... two cameras.. a Canon 700-IS( image stabilization) that I use as a pocket camera and take most of the pics on the fishing boat and around the towns with ..also just got a new Canon S5-IS 12x optical zoom... yop.. I am nutz..love that new S5 though.. Pat had her Canon SD 200.. she also took some pics.. maybe 100-150
/s/ a/k/a.. 'the Guatemala Sailfish Gringo'
anyway... here's where I fished and what I caught..booked them all thru the ship to assure that I'd get back in time for the ship's sailing..
fished Half Moon Cay, Bahamas on the first day out of Ft Laud.. that's Holland America's private island in the central Bahamas right across from the southern tip of Eleuthera... overnite those were the ruffest seas on the entire trip.. 12-14 down to 8-10''.. and yop I was out in the latter that morning..weeee..... fished there numerous times before .. usually get mahi ..cudas.. tuna.. this time.. only a bunch of medium sized cudas...
this was the first time I've been back 'cruisin' the Pacific since April-1967- when I went on my first 'cruise' ever.. from Oakland Army Terminal in SF Bay to Vietnam.. 22 days of not fun..it was FREE.. 'as in if it's FREE it's for me..but never had a Lido deck with 'grand boo-fays'
the next fishing charter I had booked was in Acapulco .. just two of us from the ship.. I got a 90# Sailfish.. let the other guy miss three hookups.. they were using regular J-hooks...and before I had the chance to make sure they were catch and release the mate bopped the Sail on the head and kept it.. hay.. I was in their land so had no choice..not happy... it was supposed to be C&R fishing that day.. had a few small bonitas ..nothing else good thru the trolling spread..
my next charter was in Cabo San Lucas.. what a beautiful scenic place.. outrageous raw beauty.. damn did I say that.. anyway we headed out.. five of us.. saw one marlin into the spread.. the mate pitched out a live large bait.. damn thing wouldn't take it.. he played with it and spit it away... NO fish caught at all.. in one of the premiere fishing spots.. did see plenty of whales.. I'd say in the hundreds.. not kidding.. water temps around 68-70*.. after the Marlin came thru the spread damn whales followed..pics to show them in the spread and next to the boat.. zippo on anything caught.. which was my biggest disappointment of any of the places I fished..
after hitting San Diego for that one day.. the ship just does a turnaround day .. leaves that same afternoon and start heading south again.. sure did get 'kewl' coming up that upper baja coast.. got into SD and it was 53* in the early morning hours
back in Cabo again two days later.. our schedule arrival was at 11am so after not catching a damn thing.. same as most others AI spoke to who did charters that day..I decided not to fish the second go round at Cabo...
next fishing stop was the next day in Mazatlan.. never got a hit .. the entire fleet of 25 boats caught one itty bitty striped marlin that I saw being taken off the boat in the marina.. a total bust.. they too also tout themselves as greatest fishing place.... I hope Zane does better than I did here..
overall Mexico didn't show me too much with its fishing.. I'm determined to get back to Cabo to give it another try( March 2009).. it's too pretty there not to catch fish there..
okay.. here goes.. Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.. I get off our ship at 730am..walked over next door to the fishing marina.. they have two boats ready for our charters from the ship....Dockmaster said to me.. "you're gonna catch and see more sailfish than you've ever seen before"..I laughed....
all I can say is.. what a day.. two young mates and a Captain.. hmmm.. why do they need two mates I said to myself.... more hmmmmm??...it took us about an hour to run out to the Sailfish grounds.. about 20 miles out.. we started trolling about 845 or so...I asked the Captain how deep.. 300' to a dropoff of near 1K' further out.. we got the first hits in the fleet of 16 boats.. he radioed over to the rest as they w*rk together like most fleets do...
well it was world class fishing.. 30' smaller boat compared to some of the other boats around there.. 5 anglers fishing.. we raised 27 Sailfish.. caught 15 onto the boat.. 3 for each of us.. saw 3 Marlin into the spread.. no hits though on the marlin as the mates put out the bigger rigs...seemed like at times there were Sailfish free-jumping everywhere...the entire crew w*rked their butts off.. plus they fed us( this is also good!).. homemade hero 'sammiches'.. fresh fruit that was outrageously good...as much as we wanted.. we only fished for 4 1/2 hours.. as the ship was sailing early at 3pm.. had to be back onboard at 230.. we had about an hour left but we all agreed and decided to go back a bit early as each of us had an equal amount of Sails landed.. biggest fish landed was by the smallest guy on our boat 150#.. he weighed 155#.. the damn fish was really bigger than him..what a fishery.. a small sleepy fishing town along the Guatemala coast.. great day.. had a blast...ALL were CATCH and RELEASE.. ONLY CIRCLE hooks used.. ..they say the Sailfish in the Pacific are bigger than the Atlantic-Florida Sailfish.. from what I've seen that is very true.. I'm sure there are better or equal places to go Sailfishing down that way like Costa Rica and Panama.. but I haven't found them yet
I saw the Dockmaster after we returned.. had to tell him he was 'right on'.. he laughed and said.. " I told you".. a good guy..
here's the Puerto Quetzal-album with some of the pics from that day.... you can see the circle hook rigs/bait .. and there is even a short video I took showing how they rigged them.. the trolling speed and the spread.... as well as some of the Sails we all caught that day.. I'm on page 2 and page 5...
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/562633744msbBnV
(click on the image)
http://thumb1.webshots.net/t/52/652/4/73/55/2476473550049937141OchCEu_th.jpg (http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2476473550049937141OchCEu)
we have plans to go back to do this cruise again hopefully next March... a really great trip that was made even better by a great day of fishing.. it doesn't take much to make me happy..
oh.. forgot to mention before the 'Jaxsonville stallion' ask'es'es me.. how much weight did I gain.. surprisingly.. after getting back home I jumped on the digital scale the next morning.. 9 1/2 #'s.. I was shocked.. and especially very very very happy after 30 days of oink oink eating
here's all 9 albums I've uploaded so far to Webshots...have some more stops I have to add
http://community.webshots.com/user/stakeouttoo
each day is labeled.. just click on an album pic.. then you'll see multiple pages for each album.. rather than clicking each pic you can do a 'slideshow'.. link at both the upper right in the yellow box as well as beneath the album pics.. if you put your cursor over a pic in the slideshow and move it to the very bottom of the pic you'll see a popup bar to adjust the slideshow.. speed.. fwd/back. etc..
I took a total of 4778 pics on the trip..yop.. 4778... two cameras.. a Canon 700-IS( image stabilization) that I use as a pocket camera and take most of the pics on the fishing boat and around the towns with ..also just got a new Canon S5-IS 12x optical zoom... yop.. I am nutz..love that new S5 though.. Pat had her Canon SD 200.. she also took some pics.. maybe 100-150
/s/ a/k/a.. 'the Guatemala Sailfish Gringo'