The catch numbers off Guatemala are truly astounding. In the waters off this small Central American country, the gameboat Captain Hook has caught and released 83 sailfish - in just one day on the water!

In the same waters, three flyfishermen aboard the charter boat Magic scored 24 sailfish releases in a single seven-hour fishing day. That's not only extraordinary fishing, but also a world record for billfish releases on fly in one day.

Anyone familiar with international gamefishing hotspots has probably read or heard about the exceptional catch figures emanating from the Central American nation of Guatemala. Catches (and releases) of over 30 sailfish a day are commonplace in Guatemala. The catch numbers there truly stretch credulity. Naturally, Sinkers and I had to see this fishing miracle for ourselves.

A PERSONAL VISIT
Five days in this unique country confirmed everything we'd seen and heard. Our angling group tagged and released 78 sailfish in just 35 hours of fishing with circle hooks and 20lb test (10kg) conventional tackle. That was roughly 50% of the fish we contacted and only a small fraction of the fish we saw.

We were blessed during our recent visit to Guatemala by the extraordinary hospitality of Don Fernando Aguilar, a true gentleman, a prominent Guatemalan businessman, and an avid and talented gamefisherman.

Cabo Yachts had introduced us to Fernando through tales of some of the amazing catches he'd made in the course of breaking-in his new 35 Cabo flybridge, Pica Pleitos. Cabo and Fernando invited us to Guatemala to attend a couple of milestones for the boat: the passing of the 1000hr mark and the 10,000th mile under its hull - the two roughly coincided. All that had taken place in the eight or so months since Fernando had taken possession of the boat in Newport Beach, California, the previous summer.

When the 1000hr mark rolled over on the 35 Cabo's hourmeter, Capt "Chema" Bonilla did a tally of billfish releases they'd made up to that moment and announced a total of 623. You do the math: they'd caught and released 623 billfish in eight months while putting 10,000 miles on a new boat, including the long delivery from southern California to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.

Our adventure began upon touching down in Guatemala City after a five-and-a-half hour red-eye flight from Los Angeles. The airport at Guatemala City is a veritable air museum, with scores of hangars lining the mountaintop runway, displaying everything from vintage radial-engined Antonov bi-planes to enough Hughes 500 choppers to outfit a small airforce.

It was all I could do to drag my gear-head travelling companion off the tarmac. He had arrived in aircraft heaven, but we had other plans - and miles to go before we'd get to fish.

WELCOME
We were met with a large "Welcome" sign and hustled into the early morning traffic before we made a pit stop at Fernando's lovely home in the capital city. Here we met our host and one of his business mentors, 81-year-old consultant Al Melton, from Virginia. Soon, the growing entourage packed up Fernando's SUV for the scenic drive down to Guatemala's southern coast and the port city of Puerto Quetzal.

We arrived at Fernando's spacious beach house, quickly dumped our travel gear, then rolled the final few miles to Marina Pez Vela, a new marina complex Fernando is developing on land he has leased from the Port Authority in Puerto Quetzal.

There we found a delightful little boating oasis with covered dry storage for 40 boats, fixed docks for another 30 boats, fuelling facilities, a launch ramp, and a palm-thatched, open-air restaurant/bar overlooking the port.

At the end of the marina wharf, blue Cabo flags stood out in the breeze and Fernando's 35, Pica Pleitos, idled at the ready.

We clambered aboard and met Fernando's skipper, Chema, and mates Ricardo and Leo. From the moment we stepped aboard, it was clear that this was a serious gamefishing endeavour. Everything was top drawer; everything was in its place; all the tackle was rigged to perfection; and baits (ballyhoo) were flawlessly rigged and neatly iced. There was no doubt that the owner and his entire team were serious about sportsfishing.

Moreover, Fernando's Cabo 35 was showroom fresh. It was clean, shiny, well cared for and tidy. Despite substantially more use than many of its sisterships, it looked near new, which was a testament both to her quality of construction and to her owner and his team.

Chema backed us out of the slip and idled across the commercial port and out the mouth of the harbour.

THE GUATEMALAN NUMBERS GAME
Despite seeing a sailfish almost immediately, Chema put us on a heading of around 150¡ and ran out at 24kt for 15 or 20 minutes, until the water's colour improved from mostly green to slightly blue. When he dropped the throttles back, four circle hook rigged ballyhoo and three teasers appeared in our wake like clockwork.

We raised sailfish almost immediately. Our trip was now ofishly underway. We soon got a great lead when Brad Phillips - skipper of the 31ft Bertram Classic, out of Fins N Feathers Lodge - called in with some coordinates at which he had just gone 11 for 18.

Before long, we too were into the Guatemalan numbers game in a big way.

It's hard to recall all the details of that short first day, thanks to a combination of jet-lag and sensory overload, but here are the dry statistics: we released 13 sailfish from 20 raised in just three hours of fishing from noon to 3pm. That's about four sails released per hour of fishing. Despite dropping a few opportunities, our angling team still boasted a 65% release average on day one.

And that's not all, just as the hour meter rolled past 999.9 hours and Chema finished quantifying the overall sailfish catch in the boat's first 1000 hours, we raised a nice blue marlin. The big fish snuck in under the short bait on the starboard side, inhaled a ballyhoo before any of us saw her coming and took off jumping like she'd been hit with a cattle prod.

The big blue put on a frenetic show and didn't part company with us until her wild gyrations put a second severe belly in the line and parted the 20lb test mono.

MARINA PEZ VELA
After that brief and extraordinary introduction to Guatemalan gamefishing, we retreated back to Marina Pez Vela and were introduced to Guatemala's excellent beer. We then rolled back to Fernando's accommodating villa, poured into the pool, showered, reviewed the day's digital photography on our laptop, ate dinner and fell into bed with visions of airborne sailfish dancing in our heads.

Day two started early. With a full day available, and intelligence gathered from the helpful skippers at Fins N Feathers Inn, and some of Chema's peers, we left Marina Pez Vela before 6am and ran 40 miles offshore.

In the clean blue water, the bite started immediately. Early on we hooked virtually everything we raised. At the rate we were going, it was easy to understand how Capt Ron Hamlin on Captain Hook had been able to lead his four anglers to catch and release 82 sailfish in a single day of fishing these waters.

On the first day, most of the fish raised came up on the teasers then moved to ballyhoo. On the second morning things were much the same, but then something changed. The fish started rising directly on the baits, whereupon they'd mouth it, hold it for awhile then spit it out. Our hook-up ratio plummeted.

I picked that moment to switch from photography to angling, knowing I'd be able to get more sailfish shots than I'd need for a dozen articles. I began with a miserable 0-for-6 score, opening myself up for some good-natured ridicule until I finally got my timing and released one. But seeing that I was a serious impediment to our overall catch numbers, I went back to the camera where I belong.

Our catch average was down and we were starting to question our skills until Capt Eric Lorenzo on Intensity, which was within eyesight, radioed that he was having similar results. When Eric asked who was behind the big lens I'd had pointed at him during his most recent sailfish battle, Fernando said: "Rick Gaffney from BlueWater magazine."

"BlueWater magazine!" Eric said. "I can't believe it. I just picked up the last three issues of that magazine, and it is the best fishing magazine I've ever read. It puts Marlin and Sport Fishing to shame!"

It's nice to be appreciated. Despite the declining catch rate and the increasing difficulty we were having hooking the now-cagey Guatemalan sails, we headed for home having released 22 sailfish from some 48 strikes - no one was sure how many fish we had raised. We also had a couple of nice dorado (mahi mahi) iced-down in the Cabo's under-the-cockpit insulated fish box.

FISHING PANDEMONIUM
That night, we were joined by Gary Carter, a 35 Cabo Express owner who splits much of his time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Playa Carillo, Costa Rica. Like Fernando, Gary is an avid, highly skilled angler and a world-traveller with wonderful tales. As a result, he fitted right into our group on day three when we ran about 35 miles offshore.

The fishing started out much as it had ended the day before, with slow, irregular bites, then increasing numbers of fish that were very hard to stick. Mind you, this was happening with an increasingly well-oiled team, joined by a sailfish expert with fast hands and good eyes. Around 11am, things really started to get crazy.

There were fish everywhere. We'd hook one (or two, and occasionally even three) sails, then tag and release them. We'd barely get the baits reset, and it would happen again.

At one point, I looked up from the melee of a double hook-up and noted that every boat in my circle of vision was working a multiple hook-up. Everywhere my eyes settled on the ocean surface, there were sailfish sails carving up the surface and balling baits, water streaming off the upper lobes of their tails.

At the same time, one of Fernando's mates had a loaded tag pole in his hand, an additional spare tag in his mouth and he was prepping baits at the same time. We were in fishing heaven!

It was hard to imagine things could get any better, but then Ricardo handed us a tall sundae glass filled with his dorado ceviche. It was love at first bite and sailfish be damned as, one after another, without prompting, Gary, Sinkers and I all professed that this was hands-down the best ceviche we'd ever tasted. Sinkers certified this by marking a new shirt with a splash of the delectable concoction, to be worn (as is his practice) ever after, like a war medal.

After lunch, the action got heavier - if you can believe that. With a fleet around us that included the 31ft Bertrams, Conga, Full Circle and Reel Escape, and one of the Fins N Feathers boats, it was fishing pandemonium.

The sailfish were feeding on massive balls of butterfish, about the size of your thumb up to the first knuckle. If you got a sailfish to take a ballyhoo, they often spewed scores of shiny butterfish as they threw their heads back and forth attempting to dislodge the circle hooks in the corner of their jaws. The Furuno colour recorder looked like a surreal painter on steroids had run amok.

While our fishing effort was for the most part serious, there were, of course, many lighter moments. At one point Sinkers ate a banana, then meticulously tied the banana peel as a cover skirt over a rigged ballyhoo. That was funny enough, but when he free-spooled his rig into the short position, it was immediately attacked by a sailfish. We had barely stopped laughing when he repeated the trick. So much for that superstition.

CAPTAIN AND MATES
We danced around the Cabo's cluttered cockpit, dodging the fighting chair with rocket launcher, the bait box, the heavy rig at the ready for a marlin, sailfish rods, teaser rods, tag poles, two mates, four anglers and a photographer. During our pursuit of the gamefish, we couldn't help but be impressed not only with the quality of the fishing, but also with Fernando's captain and mates.

It's a pleasure to travel to a remote destination and find a whole cadre of quality captains and mates. Guys who can rig baits with the best of them, who can drive a gameboat, tie a proper bimini twist, wire a fish, rig a wind-on leader and set a clean lure pattern. In short, consummate gamefishermen who can do anything required on a sportsfishing boat.

Fernando's team was well versed in the minutiae of sportsfishing. They also kept his Cabo immaculate and made sure we were adequately watered and well fed -these guys were world-class cooks. The crew also made sure everything we needed was close at hand, prepped, and ready.

At a brief visit to the fabled Fins N Feathers Inn after fishing one evening we encountered captains, mates and shipwrights from America, South Africa, Midway/Hawaii, and elsewhere, who clearly knew their craft and delivered quality to their clients, day in and day out.

INTERESTING PLACE, INTERESTING PEOPLE
It's also a pleasure to spend time on the water with interesting people. This group was exceptional in this regard. Al Melton introduced himself in a patrician Virginian drawl by explaining that he'd spent "forty-two years in the death business", and that he'd buried some 65,000 people during his career. Some of his experiences would make excellent scripts for the HBO series Six Feet Under. And some of his stories are likely to come back to us as nightmares.

Gary Carter is one of those anglers who has fished many of the world's great waters with other fishermen, captains and mates you know or have heard of, who is deeply attached to sportsfishing and has delightful tales to share in the time between strikes.

Our host, Fernando Aguilar, was not only interesting and a pleasure to fish with, but also exceptionally hospitable and warm, especially for someone we'd never met before. He welcomed us into his fishing life and his home like we were old friends. While his stature in Guatemalan society was evident if you went looking for it, he was down-to-earth, funny and willing to do anything we needed to get our story.

Fernando can trace his roots back to Spain, although his mother's family has been in Guatemala for seven generations and his father's for three. He played competitive polo for 28 years - sometimes with his four brothers making up the team. Indeed, in his fishing, you can still see vestiges of the agility and keen peripheral vision that allowed him to chase a ball from the back of a galloping Argentine polo pony.

He has three sons and two daughters. We met his youngest son, Diego, who is nearly ready to head for college and loves to fish. Fernando's youngest daughter is studying architecture at the University of Miami, and his oldest son owns a chain of stores he created and built-up himself.

Fernando and his youngest brother run the family business enterprises, which include banking and finance, cemeteries and funeral homes, and now a marina complex - soon to include an up-scale anglers' lodge and a cruise-ship terminal. He was a fount of knowledge on his country's history, politics, culture and fishery - and an absolute delight to spend time with.

On day four, things slowed down slightly, and while the bite seemed steady all day long, we closed out the day with 10 releases for 19 fish raised, plus two more dorado. When we visited Fins N Feathers that evening we were somewhat heartened to learn that most of their captains had had similar days.

BACK TO GUATEMALA CITY
Day five was a shortened day, as we all had to make our way back to Guatemala City that afternoon to be ready for early departures the next morning. In five hours of fishing on our last day in Guatemala, we pursued tuna schools mixed with porpoise and scored some sashimi-sized yellowfin. We also got our sailfish catch rate back over 60% of the bite. I went two-for-two to end the needling of my peers.

The final count was 78 sailfish released for 156 strikes in just 35 hours of fishing, plus those dorado and yellowfin tuna. But beyond those simple numbers, we'd had an extraordinary time, testing a 1000hr-old 35 Cabo, with a gracious host, his excellent team and a cast of characters only serendipity could ever pull together.

Our opportunity to see Guatemala's many unique sights and meet its people was limited by our too-brief time in country and the amount of time we spent on the water. Fishing came first, which I'm sure most of our readers will understand.

We did, however, meet several people and learn of several things worth a return trip to Guatemala. These include Oscar Caniz and Julissa Rivera of Sailfish Sportsman's Enteprises and their new Altamar sportfishing lodge, Fins N Feathers, the city of Antigua, the Mayan ruins at Tekal, Lake Atitlan, and the nightlife of Guatemala City. And Sinkers wants at least a day in a golf cart, puttering around the airport.

We went to Guatemala and met an individual boat owner whose personal bests include 53 sailfish releases in a day, 59 tuna caught on another day, 200 dorado (mahi mahi) caught during yet another single day of fishing, and a total of 623 sailfish releases in the first 1000 hours in his new Cabo 35.

That, my friends, is an exceptionally productive gamefishery, by any measure.