Galapagos Islands
San Cristobal
The weather continues to be some of the nicest and calmest I have seen in recent years. Picture perfect sunny days as well as scattered showers have made day temperatures quite pleasant. The story of the year so far is that bait in the World famous Rosa Blanca Banks has been quite absent and fishing has been slow for the last 2 weeks on Rosa Blanca. Most of the boats have been making the 68 mile run daily to Black Sheep Bank.
Black Sheep has had more bait and daily displays of surface feeding marlin but they have not shown much aggression making them more difficult than usual to catch. There are lots of marlin swimming around Black Sheep Bank but finding the hungry one or fish that will tease well enough to eat a fly has taken more work than usual.
Catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are being blamed by many for slower fishing, but personally I don’t think much of it is as relevant as some people want you to believe. Fish feed when they want to and cannot be forced. I saw similar slow feeding patterns in 1999 when we first started the fishery and there were many more fish in the Pacific back then than there are now. Out of control commercial fishing has taken its toll all over the World and even as good as Galapagos is some of the same fish that swim Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and perhaps Australia probably migrate through here as well.
March 7, 2011– the Blue captained by Julio Rodriguez fish with legendary Louisiana guide Greg Arnold and Jerry Iverson. Their goal was to catch marlin on fly. Fishing on Rosa Blanca Bank the mound known as the Honey hole only produced 1 raise.
Jhonamar 2 captained by Edwin Buenano fished with guest Tom Wheat and son Garrette. They reported raising 2 striped marlin and 2 blue marlin with 2 bites and no releases.
March 8, 2011– the Blue fished again with Jerry and Greg trying to catch a marlin on fly. While fishing on the Black Sheep Bank they raised 18 striped marlin and had 1 bite on fly with no releases. Fish would not tease in well.
Paticia fished captained by Yuri Gutierrez hosted Captain George Sawley and Gary Mabry. They reported raising 30 striped marlin, having 16 bites and releasing 11 on baits.
Jhonamar 2- with guest Tom Wheaton and Garrette reported raising 16 striped marlin, 6 bites and releasing 1.
Annette fishing with Pete Santini reported 32 raises on lure with 15 bites and 4 releases.
March 9, 2011– the Blue fishing with Greg Arnold and Jerry Iverson ran to Black Sheep Bank. 6 striped marlin were raised to teasers but only one stripey bit and gave Greg Arnold a short fight on fly that end in a very close but no release with a spit hook.
Patricia reported raising 11 striped marlin with 10 bites and 5 releases on baits and circle hooks.
Anette fishing with Pete Santini reported raising 11 striped marlin and 1 blue. They released a blue and a stripey.
March 12, 2011– the day after the tragedy in Japan and the tsunami that scared most people in Galapagos. Onboard the Patricia, Greg Arnold and Jerry Iverson fished Black Sheep Bank trying to get a marlin on fly. They raised 10 striped marlin but none would eat the fly.
March 13, 2011– Terry Carter and Darrel fished onboard the Big fish on Rosa Blanca Bank. Terry is one of the best fly fishermen I know and has fished with us for years. Trying to get Darrel a fish we started using baits. The fish did not cooperate much and only 2 stripeys were raised with one half ass bite.
March 14, 2011– onboard the Big Fish with TerryCarter and Darrel went to Black Sheep Bank and was greeted by good action from more responsive marlin. Right of the bat Darrel hooked and released a nice stripey on a spinning rod. Then 3 more fish were screwed out of eating the ballyhoo by the birds. A total of 10 striped marlin and a blue around 250# were raised with 4 bites on baits and bite on fly and 1 release on the circle hook. Terry cast the fly at a few fish that refused it including a blue but managed to get a bite out of one striped marlin.
The Patricia fishing with Mike Love, Riley Love an Guthrie Allen fished the same area and reported raising 7 striped marlin with 4 bites and no releases.
March 15, 2011– the Big Fish with Terry Carter had a very slow start with no fish raised until 2 pm when a flurry of striped marlin got hot and heavy on baits and teaser. Some bad timing and cockpit fever got the best of anglers and crew with 14 stripeys raised, 1 blue and a wahoo estimated over 100#. 8 bites and 1 release were had to baits from marlin.
Patricia reported 8 raises, 4 bites and 1 release with Mike, Riley and Guthrie.
March 16, 2011– the Big Fish traveled to Black Sheep Bank with Terry Carter and Darrel Kidwell. Ocean was calm and the water was nice. Again fly fishing there were 7 striped marlin raised to the teasers of which 2 refused the fly and one took a hell of a skyrocket bite and was released 1 hour and 50 minutes later as Terry only uses a very short leader. The fish was estimated at 180# to 190# which would be beat the current World IGFA record on fly. Since marlin are not allowed to be killed in the Galapagos this would be one of many record size striped marlin we have released on fly.
Patricia reported raising 7 and releasing 1 striped marlin out of 5 bites.
March 17, 2011– the Big Fish with Terry and Darrel fly fishing raised 6 stripeys but did not get any bites on fly.
Patricia reported raising 5 and releasing 1 striped marlin out of 3 bites.
March 18, 2011– the Big Fish went bottom fishing and jigging with Terry and Darrel. They caught cubbera snapper, wahoo, grouper and tuna by casting poppers and jigging various plugs.
March 19, 2011– The Big Fish travelled to Black Sheep Bank with Juan Durini and his friends Mauricio and Juan Carlos from Quito. They raised 8 striped marlin and saw several tailers with 3 bites and 1 release on the pitch baits.
March 20, 2011– Big Fish went to Rosa Blanca and fished the Honey Hole. Sharks, tunas and marlin were destroying a large ball of bait. Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel each landed a striped marlin. 6 were raised with 4 bites and 2 landed on pitch baits.
March 21, 2011– the Big Fish went wahoo and tuna fishing and after catching several fish the group was ready to celebrate their stay in Galapagos with a few drinks.
Folks although our fishing has not been as good as it usually is for whatever reasons we are still catching and raising on average more marlin than anyone else in the World! Don’t wait to book as our capacity this year is quite full but a few windows are available.
