Los Suenos- november starting good

[reelintenseadventures]

Hello from Los Suenos,Costa Rica!
October is finaly gone and the weather is becoming typical dry season weather people love. it have been really sunny and warm, flat seas and barely any rain.
Offshore, the water is turning clear and blue again, not to far off the beach. the sailfish bite is picking up again, lots of boats seeing 8 to 12, and catching 4 to 8 in a days fishing. the main bite has been about 30 miles out. a few marlin have been caught in the past week as well, not to far from the sailfish action.
Tunas have been scarce, but are sure to return. there were plenty of big ones around just the week before.
there have been a good number of dorados (mahi-mahi) getting caught. the dorado bite looks good for this this season after a less than stellar year last dry season.
Inshore the roosterfish action remains constent and I know of one huge cubera snapper caught in the past few days.
I had La Vida out of the water last week, getting ready for season, but I did get a chance to run a trip on it yesterday. The people said they were interested in catching something to eat, like tuna or dorado (Mahi-Mahi). I will be honest, I love chasing tunas and and throwing poppers and live bait to catch big ones, but Mahi are not usually something I pursue on purpose. I catch plenty of them, while trolling for sails and marlin, but I usually don't spend time looking for just Mahi. if you are looking for them around here, this time of year, your best chance is staying a little inshore (under 20 miles), and trolling the current/ trash lines coming out of the gulf of Nicoya. We can often find lots of small ones 5 to 20 lbs hanging around floating debris. but it is usually too close in for the main sail bite or to have a good chance at catching a marlin. sometimes you might catch a billfish or two while trolling the trash lines, but you won't be in the main concentration of fish.
But the clients wanted dorado(mahi-mahi) , so we started trolling around a trash line about 18 miles out. lots of branches, logs, some trash, and even some trees being clumped together by the current. I saw a few Mahi- Mahi, swimming under some debris, trolled by them, and they rushed out and attacked the baits. we had two on, but jumped one off and caught one about 25 lbs. my mate quickly cleaned the fish as i headed offshore in pursuit of bigger game, and cut the dorados stomach open to see what he had been eating - and was surprised to find two baby sea turtles and a plastic comb in the fish's stomach!
I started trolling again a little after 10 am. within an hour we had raised 4 sailfish, caught 3, and jumped one off. 2 of the sailfish were a double header, when you have two fish hooked at once. by 11:30 the clients said we could start heading in, that they didn't want to catch any more sailfish. ( i think they were a little hungover from the night before).
so I started heading back. I came across a large,floating tree about 20 miles offshore, so i stopped to take a look. it was a tangled mess with a bunch of old longline gear wrapped up on it, and a few sea turtles tangled in the mess. underneath the mess, I could see the neon green of some Mahi swimming, and one looked pretty big.
we started casting poppers and ballyhoo to them, and they cooperated. we quickly hooked a 20 pounder on a popper, the large one followed the hooked fish as the clients reeled him in. we cast a ballyhoo to the big one following, and he quickly engulfed the bait. once he jumped, we could see that he was a very large Mahi. he had a huge head on him and looked to be about 6 ft long! the clients fought him for about 30 minutes on a spin rod before getting him to the boat. he was definitely a big one, almost 70 lbs!
we headed back to the log and caught a few more 20 pounders and cut the 2 sea turtles loose of the mess before heading back in.
awesome day!

Captain Michael "MJ" Alligood
Reel Intense Adventures
La Vida
Reel Retirement
561-459-5355
011-506-8718-2357

[Jer]

Thank you for posting the report, Capt!

Look at that cubera snapper... wow!