Last year (2007) at the Upper Marlboro Fishing Expo I met Monte and Jody Elswick. They were promoting their new fishing lodge in Iztapa, Buena Vista Sportfishing. I talked with them for about a half hour and made my mind up that I should give them a shot and give Costa Rica a year off - am I ever glad that I made that decision. Let me give a brief rundown of the trip.
The crew included Wayne Bradford, Mike King, Ken Navis, George and Paul Winter and myself. We took TACA airlines from Dullas and flew directly into Guatemala City. The lodge picked us up at curbside and off we went. After about an hour ride we arrived to a wonderful compound that housed us for the next several days. We had the air conditioned house to ourselves with a private pool and bar right next to the pool. Breakfast and dinner was provided right at the house, along with maid service and clothes washing. The lunch was also provided on the boats along with drinks. Nothing fancy, sandwich meats and chips type of fare.
The boats that we used were the smaller ones, a 26 and 30 foot, but they were more than adequate. Did we ever see some fish! Over the course of three days of sailfishing, we had to have seen at least 1000 sailfish. No joke !! I am not saying that we had that many in our baits because we did not but they were jumping all around us all day long - it was unbelievable. We did the bait and switch trolling thing, we did some kite fishing and we did some just plain pitch "live ones" to them type of fishing. Between the two boats I would say that we actually raised 150 aggressive fish and probably caught and released at least 100 of them. I know you all are saying "that's only about 66% with circle hooks" and you're correct - they were eating funny on one of the days and what really surprised me was that they actually were more aggressive on the trolled bally than on the live ones.
I am planning for the 2009 fishing season now and just thought I's pass along this info in case anyone else is interested in trying Guatemala out for size. If anyone is interested they can call me at 410-353-0785 or go online and check it out. Here is some information: www.buenavistasportfishing.com is the web site and full of information. Jody's cell phone number is 301-928-7816. I feel like for $3600 or less per person you can fish for three days, take care of all tips, take care of air fare - in fact the only thing that you'd have to pay for is acholic beverages.
I enjoyed myself and am heading back in 09 - just wanted to share with the membership, maybe some of you will give it a try. Call if I can help.
Captain Joe Riley
800-243-0342
410-353-0785
