Casa Vieja Lodge makes the local ingredients, including fruit, a key part of their culinary showcase – you get fruit on the boat, in the “drink of the day,” and in some of the entrees as well. My favorite sweets, though, are on the daily fruit plate that precedes your a la carte breakfast.

I don’t think the sight of a leaping sailfish will ever get old, and the constantly-changing menu keeps things fresh, but nevertheless there are always slight changes that enhance the extremely special experience at Casa Vieja Lodge in Guatemala. Here are five that we noticed in February of 2023.

Whether your father introduced you to fishing or you brought him into the sport, there’s no better way to celebrate than by hitting the water together. As Father’s Day approaches, we recommend time in the boat, but even if you’re not able to fish together, you can still show him how much you appreciate his influence with a fishing-themed gift.

We’ve gone twice to Casa Vieja Lodge to target sailfish (and perhaps marlin), but one nice aspect of the fishery is that there are various other species to catch, whether intentionally or unintentionally. If you’re fortunate to catch a mahi or tuna in the morning, you can eat it minutes later.

I love soup. It can be gumbo or split pea or chowder or gazpacho, and no matter the season I’ve got to have it. The first time Hanna met my parents I promised her that my dad would mess up his shirt at some point during the dinner, but I was the one who dropped a big spoonful of soup on my shirt almost immediately. It didn’t matter – I got the girl, I got my soup, and the stain came out in the wash.

I’m not the kind of guy who craves steak, especially if it’s just average or subpar (Rodney: “still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it), but a few times a year I need a really prime cut and I splurge on an upscale steakhouse. The best I’ve ever had was the bone-in ribeye at Mastro’s in Scottsdale, Arizona, but I’ve also enjoyed the porterhouse at Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn, I’ve dined at Chicago’s Gene & Georgetti, and a few times a year we hit the gluttony-based-destination known as Fogo de Chao where I go overboard on their prime top sirloin known as picanha.

I get asked all the time: “Why don’t you eat the fish you catch?” The large majority of the fish Pete and I catch are released. Catch and release fishing is a conservation practice developed to prevent overharvest of fish stocks in the face of the growing human populations.

It’s not often your husband asks you to work the pole, but recently Pete made that request in order to ensure that we’d have a perfect fishing trip to Guatemala. Shortly before we left we needed to make sure that we knew how to get spectacular coverage of our sailfish with our GoPro as the lodge doesn’t take the sailfish fully out of the water and into the boat in order to take pictures.