Costa Rica Report...football season 4 tuna!

[CFScheer]

I've been back in Costa Rica for about a week now but didn't have a chance to get out on the water until this past Saturday and Sunday. We had a client/family friend visiting to take a look at our development project and - as always - spend some time on the water sampling the exceptional fishing we have here.

Photo from the puddle jumper of the Sierpe River mouth...our inlet to the ocean from the docks of our project 7 miles upriver.



Saturday - Left port at about 7:00 a.m for the 20 mile run down the river and out to the [I]El diablo[I] (devil) reef. We got sidetracked for about half an hour as there was a mother humpback and her calf milling about, breaching, and fin-slapping. This is a pretty common thing to see this time of year and is always a real treat for a client or a newbie. I took advantage of the situation to test launch an OTI wombat from my new OTI Ocean Xtreme 60/80 popping rod. Needless to say I was impressed with all aspects of the rod...especially the backbone I knew I could depend on once I hooked that first big Cubrera. No strikes those first few casts, but the humpback calf did follow and take a swipe........j/k







We got to diablo and commenced to catch un monton of football YFT and false albacore. Albacore were running slightly larger...some close to 8,9 lbs....fun fish. A few pompano, rainbow runners, and a 50 lb. AJ were in the mix as well.







The tuna bored us quickly, so we cruised a bit further off-shore in search of larger pelagics, but came up empty handed. Found a couple good pieces of flotsam, but despite trolling around them and dropping jigs deep below could not buy a bite...back to Diablo.

Football fest re-commenced as before and made up the primary catch. A few rat AJ's and a mystery grouper of about 10-15 lbs. came to the boat as well.





The day finished off with a pack of wahoo coming through and giving us a bit of excitement...we had 3 strikes resulting in one benthos jig nearly broken in half from the force of the strike, one pulled hook at the boat, and one botched gaff job/quick release for a 30 lber. Plenty of albacore and yellowfin on the sushi platter that night...no wahoo though ;(

final tally: 40 or so tuna, a dozen AJs and pompano, 1 snapper, 1 grouper, a handful of blue-fin trevally and rainbow runners.


Sunday - Football season continues with plenty of ravenous albacore and yellowfin hitting the jigs, but the AJs make their presence more well known. They're running bigger and striking more than the day before, but nothing anywhere near the 100 lbers we've caught in the past. Bigger fish went to about 50 and were all released. We get rocked and humbled by two biggun's before a small broomtail of about 20 lbs. comes over the rail just before leaving.





Before running back to our docks we stopped at a shallower reef on the other side of Cano Island to soak bait and toss poppers in hopes of some cubrera. Once the tuna chunks go in the water the boat immediatley gets swarmed by a school of baracuda probably in the neighborhood or 20-50 lbs....never have seen anything like that before here. I hook 2 nice ones on the wombat chugger, but despite doing the quintuple hook-set, they both come loose in about 10 seconds. The other guys end up with a few rock snapper and I officially christen my new rod with a couple of big Jacks. A buddy of mine on a boat nearby breaks off an estimated 50 lb. cubrera in the meantime. The fish took with it a mystery popper that some South African popping enthusiast client of his gave him a few years ago. The lure was responsible for more cubreras and big roosters than any other type of topwater I've ever seen down here.

Here is a photo of it. If anyone knows what brand it is, please tell me. I'd like to buy a couple more.



final tally: couple dozen football tuna, 15 or so AJs to 50#s, mixed bag of trevally, rainbow runners, pompano, small snapper and one broomtail.

We're greeted with a nice rainbow over the mangroves on the run home.


The hot jigs for the weekend were the 200g Eastern Tackle flatsiders in potroast and blue...thanks Jim. 240 g ET katanas and Williamson benthos held their own as well.

We weren't exactly jonny on the spot with the camera, so I only have a few photos. I will promise to do a better job and snap a few more with the next group of clients coming in this weekend.

Pura Vida - Cassidy

Sierpe del Pacifico
"Where the Jungle meets the River that meets the Sea"
Homesites with slip starting at $40K
www.sierpedelpacifico.com

[gman]

great reports as always when i saw the Costa Rica report I was hoping it was yours. Great looking Cuberas

[Sea Draggin]

Beautiful series of shots. Thanks Cassidy.

[paul708]

great report.
the pics are sweet.

[Andaman Andy]

Great post and pic's........ brings back memories from my fishing there, i think the popper you are looking for is a Halco Rooster Popper.

[crmarlinfisher]

hey nice report in el diablo we cough a 100lbs aj trolling with a red/white rapala

[CFScheer]

hey nice report in el diablo we cough a 100lbs aj trolling with a red/white rapala

Yeah, lots of big fish at Diablo....everything short of marlin at times.



- Cassidy
Sierpe del Pacifico
"Where the jungle meets the river that meets the sea"
Homesites and slips from $40K
www.sierpedelpacifico.com

[CFScheer]

Great post and pic's........ brings back memories from my fishing there, i think the popper you are looking for is a Halco Rooster Popper.

I checked out the Halco website...I think you're right. Do you have any idea where I could order some.

[crmarlinfisher]

fishing near isala del caño is like being in paradise thar is full of fish

[Petoven]

Great report and beautifull fishes Cassidy. Save some monster for us! We'll be there soon! Regards