The first thing I should say is that the fishing in our region of Costa Rica has been pretty good. There are enough sailfish around to make it interesting and double digit raises have been common. Some marlin has been around lately with several in the 200 to 350 pound range landed. Football tuna have made their presence. Hopefully the bigger boys are right behind them.
Boston Whaler brought their group down as well as Dave Goldberg making a return trip with 18 people. Whaler has been down now 13 years in a row. They saw some of the best fishing they have experienced and many first timers in the group took the ceremonial dunk off the dock for catching their first billfish. They also left a couple thousand dollars from their “just for fun” tournament for a project with the town school system.
Roosterfish have been cooperative but not of great size although Jordan Schachner and his cousin Matt finished their trip with a 60 pounder after catching two marlin the day before.
Mark Davis was down again filming another Bigwater Adventure sport fishing show. These guys invest a lot of money and time producing these shows so I was really impressed when he decided not to take the easy road and jump on the sailfish bite and he suggested we experiment.
We decided to target wahoo the first day. End of day one. One bite, zero wahoo. Day two Mark wanted to try deep dropping so we fished in 350 to 450 of water. We got a variety of small grouper, tile fish, congria, and some unidentifiable creatures and when most would have given up Mark kept us working the area.
Finally near the end of the day I heard him say, “That’s the bite I was waiting for.” When he set the hook, the rod doubled and we knew it was something big. A few minutes later we were lifting a 50 lb grouper on board. The best identification we have is it is a Gulf Grouper although the books say their range is not this far south.
View his photos in the Slideshow below.
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Mark finished his trip with 4 marlin coming into the spread that wouldn’t eat, and hook ups on a couple of sailfish. He got some good topwater action by catching several yellowfin tuna on poppers. Even though he didn’t take the easy way, as always I’m sure his show will be “30 minutes of awesome.”
Eric Puletti and son Eric Jr. visited us in Costa Rica from Staten Island, New York and had a great week of father & son sport fishing – they released lots of sailfish and a Pacific blue marlin. These guys were lots of fun and their passion for fishing helped make it an exciting week at the resort. We hope to see them again in the future.
Find out about summer fishing vacations in Costa Rica – check availability here
