Go Fish.

If you like to fish, you’re in the right place. Guam offers terrific fishing for anglers of all angles. Rod and reel, spear fishing, throw nets and gill nets, trolling, bottom fishing, the choices are as plentiful as the coral is colorful.

Surrounded by deep water and blessed with good weather most of the year, Guam offers particularly good deep sea fishing opportunities aboard a small number of private charter boat businesses here.

Pete Plummer’s Mamulan Charters, fishing local waters since 1978, holds the record for the largest Marlin caught on a Guam charter boat when a pair of Japanese visitors reeled in a 680-pound marlin in June 2001. The largest marlin ever caught off Guam, and for a time a world-record catch, weighed 1,000 lbs., and for years greeted travelers at the old Guam airport, where it hung in the Blue Marlin lounge.

Plummer’s dad introduced fishing to his son when he was a just a lad. Now, 61 years later, the boy in Plummer is still having fun.

“I’ve always been a fisherman. My dad took me at six, bought my first rod and reel. I was hooked. Always been a hobby. Always been a passion. I’m 67 and still like it, “ Plummer said.

Mamulan, which in Guam’s indigenous language describes a large skipjack tuna of about 30 lbs. or so, is one of Guam’s oldest charter fishing businesses. Plummer started in 1978, catering to military members looking to fill a weekend with fishing and an enjoyable time out on the water.

“Nobody was doing charter fishing then,” Plummer said.

In 1981, he had enough business lined up to make the venture a fulltime operation and has not looked back. During the boom years of 1982 to 1998, Mamulan made as many as 50 trips a month, including many made by Japanese tourists. A son, Richard, is poised to take over the business should Plummer want to take time off from running Mamulan’s 35-foot Viking and 31-foot Shamrock fishing boats.

Other well-established Guam fishing outfits are TenBoat Charter, which runs Topaz 36 boats, and Island Girl Charters, which runs a 42-foot custom built sport fisherman, but a number of other fishing tour operators have tossed lines into the water as well.

Lucky Strike’s John Eads said about 80 percent of the customers that come aboard his 31-foot Bertram Sport Fisherman are military members. Charter operators often go out about seven to 10 miles from Guam to where fish aggregating devices, or buoys, have been placed by government agencies. Eads confessed that fishing hasn’t been too good lately.

“They come through here like ducks on a migratory pattern, and there haven’t been too many ducks,” he said, chuckling.

Guam fishermen know that summer season, while milder than during winter,

yields fewer fish.

“There are two seasons on Guam, summer and winter. Best time is the winter season, from October to March, for the most and best fish to eat,” including mahi-mahi, tuna, wahoo, and some marlin, Plummer said.

In the summer, marlin and tuna are more abundant.

In the winter, the water is rougher, but has more fish. The summer ocean is calmer, but fish are fewer, Plummer said, adding that families with children are better off, usually, going during summer to help avoid seasickness.

Toshi and Mitsuyo Sato, with sons Soki and Katsu of Kagawa, Japan were recent guests aboard Mamulan II, and were all smiles upon their return to the Hagatna marina with three small tuna. One piece was quickly sliced into sashimi dockside, plated with wasabi and soy sauce, and devoured by the family. A similar offering easily fetches $100 in Japan.

“Nothing better than fresh sashimi,” Plummer said.

Mico and Stevie groove smoothly

The smooth, soulful R&B grooves of Mico and Stevie Scott are a perfect match for the warm cozy wood accented interior of Roy’s at the Hilton Guam Resort. Every Friday and Saturday night, the husband and wife duo, with Mico on piano and vocals and Stevie alternately on vocals, piano, bass, guitar or drums, lights up the establishment with crowd pleasers like John Legend’s Ordinary People, Sade’s Smooth Operator or Smokey Robinson’s Cruisin’.

“The majority of what we do are covers, old school R&B, 70s-80s R&B,” Mico Scott said during a performance break at Roy’s recently.

The Scotts name the GAP Band, Prince, Billie Holiday and Bob Marley as some of their musical influences. During the course of an evening at Roy’s, the couple winds through tunes by Al Green, the Isley Brothers, Anita Baker and other R&B staples, but also surprises listeners with the unexpected, like their own version of Seals and Croft’s Summer Breeze. But Roy’s patrons are also treated to original numbers penned by Mico and Stevie that they characterize as “R&B with a twist”, songs with inspirational lyrics.

“What mama said on the porch rocking chair,” Stevie Scott explained.

The musical couple met, married and started gigging together all in the same year, 1997. It may have been destiny. Both say they were strongly influenced by musical parents. Both were from Texas; Mico from Amarillo and Stevie from Waco, but they met in a recording studio on Guam. The project they were supposed to do never got done, but the two hit it off and have been together, on stage and off, since.

“I think we were raised similarly,” Stevie said.

The chemistry is obvious as they perform; the call and response vocals and intertwined harmonies, the constant eye contact, and the groove.

Mico and Stevie have released three CDs of original music, I Belong, The Album, and Saltwater Soul, tracks of which can be found on their MySpace page. The couple performs from 7pm to midnight Fridays and Saturdays at Roy’s at the Hilton Guam Resort, and from 9pm to midnight on Thursdays at House of Brutus.

Piti’s Patrick Palomo plays piano pleasingly.

Catch jazz pianist/composer Patrick Palomo at the Westin Hotel lobby bar on a Wednesday evening and you’ll find soothing piano jazz, an intelligent mix of Palomo’s original songs, jazz standards and the occasional pop tune. Catch him Fridays at House of Brutus with the Brutus jazz band backing 19-year-old singer Crystal Paco and be prepared for something a bit stronger. And Saturday’s at the Fishbowl with Caliente is all together different, with Latin rhythms flying all over the place.

Born and raised on Guam, Palomo, 52, is one of the island’s most familiar and talented musicians. He was an original member of The Kasuals, a 70s Guam dance band that was hugely popular here and even more so in Hawaii, and toured the Pacific Northwest. Palomo’s four CD releases, two on San Francisco-based Monarch Records, have garnered popular and critical praise locally and internationally. He performs constantly, as a solo pianist and with two different bands on Guam, and is headed for Hawaii and points east as part of a month-long tour by a number of Guam artists and performers. He’s been a consultant to Guam’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, and periodically represents Guam at regional visitor industry trade shows.

And it is perhaps no coincidence that Palomo works regularly with many of Guam’s younger musicians, as both his parents were noted Guam educators, but the benefit of doing so has exposed him to younger audiences as well who also appreciate his work.

And he is respected by his peers, not only for his music, but because he is a genuinely nice guy.

Palomo grew up in the tiny seaside village of Piti amongst a tightly knit family, and in a house full of music. His strong family ties are reflected in his music; the lead tracks on two of his albums, Piti Village and Alupang Sunset, are written with two of his sisters in mind.

“My earliest musical memory at home, the piano, my mom played. My dad played guitar,” Palomo said.

And even then, the influences were diverse.

“Other than the tunes my mom would play on piano like Over the Rainbow and show tunes and tunes that were popular, I mostly listened to what my dad was playing from his Verve records.”

Verve was the American jazz record label of the late 50s, promoting top artists like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz.

“My dad was playing stuff by (jazz guitar virtuoso) Barney Kessel, Duke Ellington, on a Telefunken hifi, on 10 inch platters. I was listening to a lot of great music. That’s all they played at home. There was no radio.”

But Palomo did see the Beatles on a recorded and rebroadcast edition of the Ed Sullivan Show, when Guam had a single, part-time television station, and he began to hear them everywhere else.

“It kind of stuck to me,” he said.

It was the strong melodic emphasis, as well as the vocal harmonies that drew his interest, he added.

Palomo said he fell under a Latin spell when he heard Antonio Carlos Jobim, who, along with Stevie Wonder he names as a most favorite composers. Latin rhythms pulsate throughout his recorded work and in performance. His surname, after all, is Palomo. Somewhere along the way, his Chamorro heritage played a duet with Espania.

The Fab Four’s melodic focus, and his perhaps inherent appreciation of Latin beats still resonates in Palomo. On the free internet radio site UK Real.com, reviewer Robert Leaver wrote, “Guam native Patrick Palomo performs Latin-tinged jazz in a small ensemble group. Showing strong technique, his original compositions demonstrate his melodic strengths. Tropical dinner jazz that still bops.”

Palomo said his latest recording, Evolutions, shows how he has grown since 1992’s Piti Village. The two-disc Evolutions recasts a number of Piti Village songs.

“I think I have evolved musically because I felt more peaceful about doing it and there was more of this maturity, of the way that I felt inside.”

Yet, Palomo is far from finished in his own evolution. He continues his musical self-education by studying jazz greats like Art Tatum. And he listens to new music as well, like the UK’s Jaime Cullun.

"I still feel I have so much to learn.”

I still listen to Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, cause they’re all evolving and getting so much better. What they’re doing is phenomenal, especially because they always work with the younger musicians that are coming out, and man, these cats are getting better and better all the time.”

It’s no surprise then, that most of Palomo’s bandmates are younger, some a generation or more so.

“We’re just oozing with young talent here on our island.”

Having been through leaner, trying times, Palomo optimistic and happy.

“I’m taking advantage of having gigs and still being healthy to play.”

And he says jokingly but not kidding, “Two more years and I can think about going to the (University of Guam) and not having to pay tuition.
The school allows residents aged 55 and up to attend tuition-free.

“ I’m kind of looking forward to that. I know I’ll have some options. Take some music courses. Keep my mind going.”