The good, the bad and the ugly.

  Well it has been one hell of the week. On the backcountry the big tarpon are all over and thick. It’s so beautiful when this fish start busting on sand perch at the surface of the water that is nothing but imprecive. All the tarpon are around 50 to 100 pounds….. At least the one we are targeting, there is no doubt that other charters like to stay closer to the mangrove looking for 5 to 10 pound tarpon just to stack some numbers and post reports of the “incredible task”.  We had land some tarpon from 60 to 90 pounds in the last two days. This is the good…the bad is that we have lost 50% of the bite with some kind of bad luck going on, no bowing, seting the hook with circle hooks, or all of the above, at the end we jump a bunch of tarpon and had a ball just jumping them.

  The ugly was off shore for sailfish… it was one of those tough days at the office. It all start whe the mate on the boat that day  ( I will not mention his name for his own benefit..jajajajaja!!!!) was tyng the line to the out rigger, here we go, the first bite, not ready for it and lost the first one. The morning keep going for about another 1/2 hour when the next bite happens and for what ever reason this sailfish eat all the bait and left. By this time I knew it will be one hell of the day…. and it was. Another 40 minutes whent and “bamba” another bite of a very small sailfish, eat 2 baits and lost the fish again. At the end of the day we end up with 6 bites of sailfish and lost all of them… I mean all of them, two of the sailfish were “perfectly hook” out of a triple header and few jumps in to the fight and we lost both of them. I didn’t know if at this point I wanna cray or laugh about the scenario. But you know is a painful reality that when is for you is for you and don’t matter how alert and ready you are when the shit hit the fan it’s all over. We didn’t lost the sailfish because I was with a rookie, this gentleman has been fishing for over 25 years, is a wonderful mate, very alert and has won from mahi-mahi tournaments severaltimes to the biggest blue marlin on some of the most important tournament in the Island. So that’s why is call this sport fishing and not catching…. I hate the fishing and I love the catching. Thank you for your support. Please I need all the people who read this page to bring a prayer for a grate fisherman and a friend, Capt. Nico who is fighting lung cancer. Please keep our friend on your prayers.

See You Next Tide

Capt. Omar Orraca

Up & Down

  This last weekend the fishing for tarpon slow down at 4 to 6 bites per 1/2 day on same range, 10 to 40 pounds. On Sat. I guide Mr. & Mrs. Matarazzo to the lagoons for their first tarpon and the fishing was slow but we were able to close the day with a 40 pounder on 8 pond test and it took about 20 to 30 minutes to land the beauty, it was a ball, both the fight and the company. I am looking forward to better tides in the morning and afternoon for the frenzies to get back on the surface.

  Off shore billfish action in my personal opinion is good.  We had some recreational boats off Cangrejos Yacht Club with shots at grand slam or 3 different species of billfish in one day of fishing. Here in Puerto Rico is not common to get all 3 species blue marlin, white marlin and sailfish on the same day on the same boat but last Saturday a friend name Gaby had the shot… they land a sailfish, white marlin and lost the blue marlin after some time into the fight, it really hurts, I am sorry but at the same time this is what keep us in the water and try again…. good job any way. Also many boats has report multiple shots at sailfish per day along with all size mahi-mahi, from 5 pounders to 50 pounders. Sunday First Lady (Bertram 35) land a small tuna and we lost a sailfish on 1 1/2 hours of fishing and that’s a good sing of full active season, almost every boat is having some kind of action with billfish, mahi-mahi, tuna, or wahoo or some time multiple species. Another detail is that from know on the biggest tackle on my boat is 30 pound test. We fish 16 & 20 TLD and Thunnus spin reels from Shimano and 30 pound test. We fish only fresh bait dress with skirts and or small lures for this light tackle mix bag. Also we love to work wahoo with down rigger. We have plenty of days open the next couple of weeks for deep sea fishing and light tackle for tarpon and snook. Next week we start to sell live bait, we have 600 gallons live well were we will feed the bait,keep fresh and cool to control the quality of sand perch and mullet.  

See You Next Tide

Capt. Omar Orraca

Weather Tarpon

 The last month or so we has had some rain than normal and along with the rain is a classic to have our big tarpon very active. For the last 18 years I had fish the lagoons as professional guide I had seen this tarpon getting very active on the rainy season or late Sept-Oct and early Nov. Last year the first monster was guiding Petter Debon and Sabrina were she hook a tarpon over 140-150 lbs on fly rod and pull the hook…22 days after we were able to hook and land a tarpon on the 150 with Mike Mazur from Sport Fishing Mag. This year we are able to guide customers on up to 6-8 tarpon on the 60 to 100 pound range on the boat WITH UP TO 18 BITES OF BIG TARPON on 1/2 day or 4 hours all on live bait. When the rain stop over some consecutive days we are able to spot nice size frenzies on the peak tides. This frenzies or blitz can produce average of 10 to 20 bites landing 8 to 12 tarpon on the 10 to 40 pound range wich are perfect fish for 8 pound test and 6wt fly rod. We also have a good number of snook were the average size is 2-10 pounds and some 12 to 15 pounder has been report by other charter boats that like to spend more time on the snook.  

Off shore, the blue marlin season has been slower than last year but enough to keep customers busy. The first couple of mahi-mahi are showing under floating debris, weed lines, empty buckets, wooden logs etc. Along with this small mahi-mahi we can experience some big blue marlin still around, not big numbers of them but big ones since the water still on the low 80s we still have time to nail a fish over 700 pounds. This year a hand full of boats land big blue marlin and I don’t think any boat this year land more than one or two fish over 500 pounds. Last year some charter boats land more than one 700 pounder contrary form this year. This year First Lady land only 2 nice size blue marlin one about 450 and another one about 500, but the average were around 150-250. All the lures we drag this year were Top Guns and Bart Millers. This is the last couple of weeks were we will use the guns or the 80 pound test and keep a combination of lures and ballyhoo for mahi-mahi, wahoo and sailfish that has been report by some recreational fisherman. We still have plenty of  days open for tarpon fishing in the back country and off shore for blue marlin, sailfish, tuna, nahi-mahi and wahoo.