BrycePoyer
New Angler
Just wanted to do a little writeup of a trip to Galapagos that I went on in February. These islands in the Pacific are off the coast of Ecuador, and are the host of some excellent big game fishing opportunities. We fished with the "Ecuagringo" operation on this trip. We ended up bringing a lot of our own tackle and custom rods from the shop to "put them to the test". The trip started with a flight into Ecuador, and from Ecuador we got on a small plane and headed for San Cristobal in the Galapagos. Within 45 minutes of getting off the plane, we were getting on to the boat and heading off to go fishing. Our first day started off with some bottom fishing. We had a mix of delicious bottom fish that we ended up bringing to a restaurant that night to have for dinner. There was a mix of different grouper/snapper species, almaco jacks (which were surprisingly delicious). All of the fish were caught jigging which was a lot of fun. Our expectations for this trip were mostly to fish topwater for tuna, but the tuna fishing was surprisingly slow so we ended up taking advantage of the world-class striped marlin bite that was going on over the next 3 days of the trip, while attempting to find some tuna as well. We caught enough marlin each day to satisfy us, and spent the rest of the day trying to find some of the tunas that were not really present. This marlin fishing was absolutely ridiculous. There were "national geographic" style feeds, with marlin corralling and attacking bait-balls of sardines. In a half a day of fishing, we had as many as 50 raises, with as many as 4 hookups at a time, and more fish still following the teasers while we were hooked up. We did hook some fish on the set 30-50lb standup tackle, but we were also able to pitch-bait a good amount of fish using small Talica 16's, and even fly tackle. On lighter tackle, these fish are ridiculously fun to catch. So, all in all, what we thought was going to be a topwater tuna trip ended up being a trip with the best marlin fishing we've ever seen, and no tuna foamers. It was a quick trip, and we didn't really have a chance to see any of the nature that the Galapagos are principally known for, but in the harbors we got to see so much life between the sea lions during the day, and the false albacore and cowunder the dock lights at night. All of the lodging accommodations and food were great, and I would 100% go back for another adventure. No matter where you are in the world, sometimes you just have to be willing to play the hand you're dealt and take advantage of what's there. It was an epic trip, and we all came away more than happy.
