Greetings from North Carolina:
I arrived home from Guatemala last night at midnight, drove to the hospital at 6 AM this morning, to an appointment to get a shot of cortisone into my right hip to try to relieve the arthritis pain. Sorry for the delay in sending Sailfish School reports from Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala, I will head back down later this week and keep the reports coming on a regular basis for the rest of the season. When my plane landed in New Bern last night the temperature was 18 degrees, when I left the lodge earlier in the day it was 83 degrees.
The first 8 days of December produced mixed results with quite a few Striped Marlin, Blue Marlin and Sailfish raised, hooked and caught as the season ramps up. My Sailfish School group of Jack and Judy Charlton, (designer and builder of Charlton and now the Mako fly reels, the best fly reels ever built www.makoreels.com ), Jerry Jenkins (Phoenix, AZ), and Mark Vorobic (Bow WA), would fish aboard “Intensity” with Captain Mike Sheeder. While, Keefer Meranto, (Anacortes, WA), Tony Casad (Blue River, OR), and Richie Glonek (Scottsdale, AZ) fished aboard “Makaira” with Captain Jason Brice. Jack did some damage to his thumb a week before the trip so he would be taking pictures of Judy and his other friends while enjoying seeing his wonderful reels do what he builds them to do.
December 10, 2010, one of the rare cold fronts to reach pacific Guatemala during the winter time came through, so we fished in 3 to 5 foot seas, which are calm for North Carolina but choppy to rough for Guatemala. The two boats raised 20 sailfish, got 12 to bite the fly in hard conditions, and then my guys caught and released 4 sailfish on fly, (2) on each boat.
January 11, 2010: Today I rode along aboard the Makaira with Keefer, Tony, and Richie, the seas were calm but we had a hard time finding the fish, at 2 PM we heard on the radio that one of the other boats found some fish about 15 minutes from us. Jason put the boat on a plane and at 2:15 we put the teasers in the water, during the next hour and a half we raised 6 sailfish, got 5 bites, and each guy released one Sailfish on fly. While this was going on Intensity was having trouble finding fish which would eat the fly, however after 4 good bites the day before, Judy Charlton was ready, she cast to, hooked, and then caught and released a Sailfish of over 100 pounds, (Her first ever)! A total of four fish were caught and released today on both boats combined, I am waiting for a picture of Judy,s fish which will be in my next report.
January 12, 2010: Today I was back aboard “Intensity” where the water was calm during the first 7 hours of the day and then the wind came up late in the afternoon. The fleet headed way to the west today, we never began to fish until 8:45 but at 8:47 Mark hooked the first sailfish of the day, 6 minutes later he had released his first Sailfish of the day. Shortly later Jerry caught a nice sailfish on fly, and for the next 6 hours we raised 5 sailfish per hour. We had located the beginning of the mother load of sailfish, some of the fish were red hot , would tease in and eat the fly right away, while many would not tease in and we never got a chance to cast to them. The other 5 boats from Casa Vieja Lodge fleet caught a total of 80 sailfish today with most anglers using conventional tackle.
When the day was over, we had raised close to 30 sailfish, got 8 to bite, and released 4 on the fly. Aboard “Makaira”, Keefer, Richie, and Tony got into them pretty good, Captain Jason Brice put them on the sailfish, they got 10 bites, and caught 7 sailfish on fly on there final day of fishing.
As usual Casa Vieja Lodge, the staff, the food, the boats, the crews, put on a world class trip for my friends to enjoy the best Sailfishing in the world. While my Sailfish School was in progress a group of anglers from Texas came to Casa Vieja Lodge to fish for two days aboard 5 boats, most were fishing conventional light tackle while a few were fly fishing, They Released 105 Sailfish in two days, we are getting ready for a red hot season. The Carlton group caught a total of 19 sailfish on fly, every angler cast to, hooked, fought, and released sailfish on fly, only on in the group had done this before. We had fun they will be back for more!
For those of you who always dreamed of catching sailfish on fly, or a bunch of them on light tackle, “Intensity” with Captain Mike Sheeder has a few open dates between now and the end of the year. Also I have room for one, or maybe even two teams to fish in my Fly tournament at Casa Vieja Lodge on January 11, 12, and 13, 2011. Please call me this week before I head back to Guatemala later this week to get in on some awesome fishing. Stay Tuned for more fishing reports, I love my job! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year:
Jake
Jake Jordan
Jake Jordan’s Fishing Adventures
PO Box, 309
Havelock, NC 28532
252-444-3308 (home/office)
305-872-6060 (cell)
www.jakejordan.com