Galapagos Fishing Jan- April

'm in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, getting ready to head back to Miami for the past couple days. Since January I have lived on a small island called Isabella for a study abroad program. This semester I have taken classes down here on antropology, terrestrial biology, marine ecology, marine conservation, and geology. We have explored volcanoes, swam with 15 foot manta rays, conducted marine surveys and so on. I lived with a host family and was able to go fishing with my host father who is a local fisherman. I have many stories to tell and amazing pictures to show not just of fishing but of the amazing beauty of the enchanted islands. On Isabella internet is spoty and you never know when you'll be getting it. I was unable to load any pictures to photobucket until now so I will summarize 3 months of fishing here and in another post show all the wonders I was able to see.

In the Galapagos national park it is illegal to sharkfish, so this is as close as I was able to get to catching one:

On weekends I was able to fish offshore around large volcanic rock formations such as la viuda, brater, and cuatro hermanos. Around these huge rocks there are plentyfull tuna and wahoo. O.ne must reel their fish in fast otherwise the sea lions "lobos" may get them, that or sharks.

During spring break I traveled to San Cristobal to fish the famous Banco Rosa, where the largest striped marlin in the world are caught. My friend Ryan and I ate a quick breakfeast at a local resturaunt and happened to be sitting next to the owners of a private yacht. He told me that they had caught a 600lb blue marlin the day before, needless to say that excited me A LOT!.... So we get on the boat and run about 40 miles out to the famous bank. Almost imediatley we see about 100 birds, dolphins, and sea lions, massacering a big baitball on the edge of the bank. We troll through it without hits. All of the sudden off the bow, the dorsal fin of a marlin slice through the surface of the water..."MARLIN!" I scream pointing to the moving fish.... we hold our breath as we wait for it to hit... but there is not hit. The marlin disapears and we never see him again. We see one other marlin, but its a similar situation. Out at Banco Rosa, all we manage to land is a small yellowfin:

A little bit discourage, after a long day of trolling, we head in towards some nearshore spots to see if we can get a wahoo or two. At this spot my friend Ryan hooks up on a nice hoo... he's fighting it and then all of a sudden "WHAM" a 400 lb bull sea lion picks the wahoo out of the water and slams with its full body weight. Ryan struggles as the immense sea lion does everything it can to rob him of his wahoo. In the end Ryan is victorious and brings up the mangled hoo:

I also manage to land a wahoo, but it is somewhat smaller:

The mate sets the wahoo on the deck and together we put out the rapalas. This is a good and a bad move as you will soon see. Three rods go off at once, these are deffinitley tunas by the way they are fighting, but these are a lot bigger. The mate fights one for a while, but looses it, but me and ryan continue to fight the large tuna. I tell ryan that we need to cross because his tuna is on my side of the boat and vice versa. As we cross, I feel a sharp pain down on my foot, I have just walked into the wahoos open mouth ... My foot begins to bleed profusely, and I curse outload to myself for my stupidity, but the fight is still on. The battle rages for 15 more minutes and we finally land the massive tunas. Lifting the tunas up for a photo my shakes its way out of my hands, I scream in pain, as the 50lb + tuna lands on my now blood soaked foot. Here are the tunas:

And heres my foot after washing it down with water.

The wahoo's teeth not only cut through my skin, but also my tendon... I had to get for stitches inside and 5 on the outside.... Right now its just a nice scar.

So we get back to Isabella Island after an eventful trip. I had to limp barefoot through the sand filled streets for a few weeks, but thats nothing to get down about when your in such a beautiful place.

A few weeks go by and its time for carnival. Walking down the streets of Isabella you where your worst clothes, because the chances of you being sprayed by foam, and water balloons filled with beer, paint, or oil are high.

It is also time for big competitions such as horse races running races and of course the annual Isabella fishing tournament. I am proud to say that Team Bullbuster represented well in the Galapagos by winning both 1st and 3rd place for heaviest fish. With a 53 lb wahoo and a 40 lb wahoo. Our boat also caught several yellowfin tuna.

To end the trip we had caught so many tunas and hoos, that I decided to go really light tackle trolling to make it more interesting. I used only my stradic 4000.
Fighting a tuna

20lb yellowfin

35lb hoo

Nice snapper

Two days ago, I traveled back to the Island of San Cristobal with my girl and her brother for one last shot at a Marlin. Franklin the captain of the Samysol II, which I had fished with a month earlier, met me at the hostal to talk fishing. Franklin told me that there fish were not at Banco Rosa, because it had warmed up, but that if we traveled to a bank called 88 for its distance from the port, that the chances of us hooking up on a marlin were good. I talked to my girl and her brother to see if the long day would be good with them and got the thumbs up. Going to sleep with dreams of big jumping marlin.

The next morning we were on the boat at 6 ready for the long run out to the bank. Arriving at the bank, there were significantly less birds then last time. I took this as a bad sign, but boy was I wrong. Passing through the first group of birds, I hooked onto my first Marlin! I fought it for about 10 minutes as it greyhounded along the surface of the water, and then the hook pulled . We kept trolling for a while and saw several marlin, but got no hits. Finally we found a nice set of birds and trolled through it. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ... two rods went off. Jonathan grabbed one and I the other. Jonathan's turned out to be a yellowfin, and mine turned out to be a Marlin and a decent one at that.

I fough the Striped Marlin for a while, until the sweat was dripping down my face and my arms were beggining to wear. Finally we leadered it and brough it up on the boat for a picture. Man thats an amazing fish.

We ended up seeing about 20 marlin.. at one point we had four in our spread at the same time! We hooked up on four. And both Erin and jonathan were able to fight one.. but they all got off. Erin ended up gettin a yellowfin before we headed in too. Overall its been a trip I will never forget.

I'll be back in Miami on thursday night.. I'm ready to catch some big sharks in the BHC!