"This is the 5th Annual Tournament.  The first three being held at Golfito Sailfish Rancho in Costa Rica and the last two here at Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala.  There were two days of pre-fishing to get all the kinks worked out and now three days of tournament action.

 

Today Casa Vieja Lodge kicked off the Fifth Annual Stu Apte Fly Fishing Sailfish Tournament. Seven teams from across the country competing for the coveted Golden Sailfish Award. The morning bite was on fire!!! Doubles, triples and quads of sailfish were covering up every game boat. The radio was ablaze with the captains chatter of what promised to be a typical Guatemalan fishing day. Unfortunately, releases were hard to come by as the pressure of the sailfish coming into the spread mounted. By mid morning the releases started coming in to tournament headquarters. Rum Line, Pelagían, Release and Finest Kind were all in a head to head battle for first place. When the spray finally settled it was the Release as the official days victor.

Official Tournament Standings – Day 1:

Release 440 – Drs. Updegraff & Dee each had two releases
Finest Kind 330 – Cowan with two releases and Howington with one release
Pelagian 220 - Tim Eshelman with one release, brother Pete scoreless
Rum Line 220 – Drs. Smith & Kolassa one release each
Intensity 110 – Stu Apte one release and partner DePriest scoreless
Afinity 110 - Gaskell one release and partner Wade scoreless
Circle Hook - Capt. Eddie raised 17 sails, had 3 bites. Two were lost immediately and a reel was broken on the third rendering The Swisstacks scoreless - Que Lastima!

Yesterday, the boats raised more sails in one day than they had in the Apte Costa Rica tournaments COMBINED!"