A Year in Review: 2024 Numbers
20,168 Sailfish Released. What. A. TOTAL!
To do the math, that is roughly a 66% increase from the numbers we saw in 2023 (which was 12,160 releases), can you believe it?? Compared to the year before, we doubled the amount of fish released, and then some!
As for Marlin, we are proud to say we had 668 raises, 486 bites, and 319 Marlin releases (combination of black, blue, and striped)!!!
And lastly, we saw a whopping total of 575 tuna and 2,973 dorado!! Sustaining our lodge-goers (and staff!) with full bellies for the whole year.
There’s no other place in the world with lodging and fishing like we have at Casa Vieja Lodge, and there’s definitely no other place with as dedicated and outstanding captains and mates as ours! We are so grateful and thankful to our clients who make fishing numbers like these a reality alongside our captains & mates who help put them on the fish.
A massive thank you to each and every angler who showed up and helped contribute to these astounding, record-breaking numbers!
Join us this year to add your numbers to the 2025 Billfish Report!
Total Billfish released from the past 8 years:
2024: 20,168
2023: 12,160
2022: 12,484
2021: 11,391
2020: 5,668*
*shut down for 8 months (Covid)
2019: 12,215
2018: 12,347
2017: 10,464
“Say Cheese!”
We at Casa Vieja Lodge are incredibly excited to announce our collaboration with the astounding photographer Matilda Leijon in March & April of 2025!
With multiple cover shots featured in Marlin magazine, Matilda is gracing us with her camera from March 2-14 & April 4-23 at the lodge, and we want you to get first chance at the best shots!
For an additional fee with your lodge stay, this package includes a full day of shooting plus access to all the photos. From a few morning photos with you and your crew before taking off, to portraits during sunrise, jumping fish and just some general shots of you enjoying yourself on the water, Matilda will capture it all!
With somewhere between 100-150 shots per day, edited and sent to you that same night, you’ll enjoy scrolling through your photos from the day while relaxing and enjoying a drink under our Tiki after fishing.
Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to get some epic shots from your trip of a lifetime!
Already have a trip coming up in March or April? Call us ASAP to book Matilda for your stay. Not booked yet?? Click HERE now to get on our books before we fill up for April!
Availability for 2025 has been going fast so you’ll want to snap up any spaces as soon as you can, check our availability calendar to see if you can snag any dates!
January Fishing Report
Wow, what a January! With a blank slate ahead of us, we’ve already started off this year strong! Saying hello to our brand new (to us) boat, the Isla Mas. This 43′ Merritt—who’s currently taking over for The Hooker during its’ ongoing renovations—has already proven to be a fishing machine, just check out those numbers below.
Altogether this month we saw 4,248 sailfish raises, 3,684 sailfish bites, and 2,413 sailfish releases! As for marlin, we saw 53 raises, 40 bites, and 23 overall releases—4 of them striped marlin! We saw as many as 65 sailfish raises, and 39 releases each in just a single day!
If you’d like to see how well we’re already doing for yourself, check out the awesome Fishing Counter on our homepage! There you’ll see our total Billfishing Release numbers so far from 2025, plus other years as well!
Below are our fishing highlights (combination of conventional & fly):
- January 1st-22nd,Finest Kind (40′ Whiticar)with Capt. Benji Bairez, had 673 raises, 549 bites, 378 sailfish releases, 6 marlins raised, and 6 marlin bites, and 1 marlin release, plus 20 mahi-mahi!
- January 1st-22nd,Poco Loco (44′ Nickerson) with Capt. Jono, had 446 raises, 374 bites, 264 sailfish releases, 7 marlins raised, 4 marlin bites, 3 marlin releases, plus tuna & 17 mahi-mahi!
- January 1st-22nd, Chilero (38′ Warren O’Neal) with Capt. Nico Melendrez had 533 raises, 475 bites, 334 sailfish releases, plus 7 marlin raise, 6 marlin bites, 5 marlin releases, 9 tuna & 19 mahi-mahi!
- January 1st-22nd,Pica Más (48′ Whiticar)with Capt. Nicho Alvarenga, had 686 raises, 630 bites & 392 sailfish releases, 5 marlin raises, 2 marlin bites 2 marlin released, plus 11 mahi-mahi!
- January 1st-22nd,Release (37′ Merritt) with Capt. Sammy Baires, had 438 raises, 359 bites, 188 sailfish releases, 2 marlins raised, 2 marlin bites, 1 marlin releases, plus 1 tuna & 28 mahi-mahi!
- January 2nd-22nd, the Makaira (37′ Rybovich) with Capt. Jeffrey Garcia, had 594 raises, 547 bites, 384 sailfish releases plus 6 marlins raised, 4 marlin bites, and 2 marlin releases, plus 6 tuna & 23 mahi-mahi.
- January 2nd-22nd, Rum Line (40′ Gamefisherman) with Capt. Terry Brennan, had 495 raises, 433 bites, 288 sailfish releases, 9 marlin raised, 7 marlin bites, 5 marlin released, plus 2 tuna & 15 mahi-mahi!
- January 12th-19th,Afinity (39′ Billy Knowles) with Capt. Franz Hoffman, had 137 raises, 120 bites & 65 sailfish releases, 3 marlins raised, 1 marlin bites, plus 5 mahi-mahi!
- January 15th-22nd, Isla Mas (43′ Merritt) with Capt. Carlos “Caluco,” had 140 raises, 114 bites, 68 sailfish releases, plus 5 mahi-mahi!
