Calm Seas, Blue Marlin, Sailfish, Tuna, and Dorado. Yes, this description sounds a lot like what you might hope for in the afterlife. It’s also about how we’d describe June through August in Guatemala.
Summertime in Guatemala means blue marlin season. It’s a good time of time of year, for some the best time to fish here.
Offshore, the fishing is characterized by floating logs that hold bait, blue marlin, and lots of dorado. We frequently enough run across schools of tuna that we’re prepared with spinning rods with poppers– and soy sauce and lime. And, because you’re fishing in Guatemala, the sailfish bite is generally consistent and productive.
COME SEE US. Let’s Go Marlin Fishing.
What follows is an introduction to fishing Guatemala in the summer. It’s the start of the rainy season here, the air is fresh. The climate mixes well with cold beer and blue water. And were you to talk with Kiwi, he might even say that personally, this is his favorite time of year to fish Guatemala. And if you’d like to fish with Kiwi, he’ll be running the boat until around September 1.
Guatemala’s Blue Marlin Fishery
Guatemala is blessed with a consistent, productive blue marlin fishery. There is often a bit of annual variation in numbers of fish—as is the case with marlin fishing most anywhere in the world.
Some years we find more fish with greater consistency. Some years the class of fish is larger than others. But if you were out to plan a trip to catch blue marlin and sailfish, there aren’t many more sure bets in the world than right here.
For historical context, consider:
Prior to the deployment of FADs in Costa Rica, captains from Guatemala would regularly win The Billfish Foundation’s top release and top tagging awards for Pacific blue marlin (in addition to always winning for Pacific sailfish). In fact, Captain Kiwi van Leeuwen’s trophy is at the lodge.
The FADs have skewed numbers a bit, but the blue marlin fishing here remains the same. It can be very good and is conducted with the charm of how blue marlin fishing has always been—hunting the edge, searching for floating logs and bait in blue water. Trolling plastics to bring them up for a pitch bait or live baiting bonito or small yellowfin in places where we find them.
Any day with multiple blue marlin shots is a good one. And if you want your best year-in, year-out odds in Guatemala, summer is the time.
Blue Marlin Fishing the Past Two Seasons
Last year and 2024 the marlin fishing in the summer was good. 2024 was a good year for numbers, but the fish on average were a bit smaller than other years.
In 2025, our average blue marlin was a bit bigger—pushing 300 pounds. In June 2025, we had a day of five blue marlin bites. Last August, in 12 days of fishing, we had 36 blue marlin bites.
The lodge record for blue marlin fishing? Releasing seven blues from 13 bites in a day.
Many of the blue marlin we raise are approachable on fly tackle.
You might consider this blue marlin fishing within the context of Guatemala’s incredible sailfish fishing. The marlin fishing is often further offshore than the sailfish, but waves of sailfish are here consistently enough that it’s common for groups to release 20 or 30 over the course of a trip, in addition to the marlin that we target. In fact, last July our best day sailfishing, we released more than 30.
What to Expect
Most years, the rains start in late April or May. This pushes logs out of the rivers and into the sea. After floating for three weeks or a month, the logs (sometimes they are entire trees that are longer than the boat with attached root balls that are larger than the bed of a pickup truck), the logs begin to hold bait.
You can tell an older log from a newer one by the amount of algae and barnacles it carries. Cleaner, new logs haven’t floated long enough to hold bait.
We like the ones that are covered in barnacles. Finding one of these giant logs floating in blue water offshore can be like finding a golden ticket.
There will often be schools of bonito in the vicinity. There are often mobs of blue runners and assorted trigger fish holding beneath it.
One of the most exciting scenes in offshore fishing is trolling past a log and seeing two or three 30 or 40-pound dorado, lit up in streaks of yellow and green, sometimes electric blue, emerge from around it. Watching the blunt head of a big bull dorado push water as it piles on a ballyhoo or a popper is a sight to behold.
The ocean is a large, mostly empty space. When bait finds floating structure offshore, it holds on it. Bait stays there for safety, hoping to use it for cover when predators come along.
In the offshore environment, when there is an aggregation of bait, there are often game fish. In our part of the world, that means dorado around the log. It often means wahoo patrolling the depths.
When there are bonito and dorado around, you will find blue marlin. When the conditions are right—a log covered in barnacles, surrounded by bait, and ideally with a school or two of bonito in the vicinity, it is time to live bait.
COME SEE US. Let’s Go Marlin Fishing.
This is the tiger’s cave. The place blue marlin live.
We’ll fill the tuna tubes and run a live bonito on a 50-wide out of each rigger. These are great incredible baits for blue marlin, but if big yellowfin are around, there’s not a better option.
We’ll often run a live blue runner on a lighter rod down the middle. We’ll catch dorado, sometimes sailfish, and even blue marlin this way.
Live baiting is slower and covers less ground than trolling plastics. As a rule, you deploy the live baits in places where you know the fish are. In the summer time in Guatemala, that often means around logs or isolated schools of bonito in deep, clear water.
Tuna Fishing
Summer time is also the best time of year for tuna. The tuna generally show up around the first of June.
We frequently target tuna when there’s the opportunity. We often find them with schools of spinner dolphin, working bait offshore.
This is a fun brand of fishing. We’ll position the boat to allow anglers to throw poppers into the leading edge of the school.
A yellowfin bite on a popper is explosive. It will change your perspective.
Often, we find the tuna with birds—sometimes bobbies diving, frigates swooping in from above. Sometimes, it’s groups of tuna birds—hundreds of small storm petrels sitting atop the water, awaiting fish to push bait to the surface.
However we target tuna, the things run like cut snakes and nobody has ever been mad about fresh yellowfin coming over for dinner. Our crews are well provisioned for boat lunch and the chefs are ready at the lodge, too.
We catch many of our bit tuna live baiting bonito. We’ll also troll cedar plugs to great effect.
We’ll catch tuna regularly up to 80 pounds. Fish to 150 are not unheard of. The lodge record went 269.
Calm Seas, Blue Marlin, Sailfish, Tuna, and Dorado
Yes, this description sounds a lot like what you might hope for in the afterlife. Calm seas, blue marlin, sailfish, tuna, and dorado… it also sounds quite a bit like summertime in Guatemala.
We’ve got a few open dates. Come see us. We’d love to show you why we like this place and this time of year so much….
COME SEE US. Let’s Go Marlin Fishing.
