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As some of you may know, I just came back from a week in Quepos where Nansea and I made things official. She tells her friends that we went down to get married, and I say I went on a fishing trip and just happened to get married in between trips
In any event, I booked two days of fishing with Dave Dobbins (fishlamanta.com) before I left. The first day, Dave was the mate and we fished on the Big Eye with captain Frankie as we had 5 anglers. We wanted to put some meat on the boat for the wedding party, so headed out to a reef 20 or so miles off. We got there to find lots of bait, but not much else. A number of big wahoo had taken up residence, so the bite was off. After trying to find joy with them and having no luck, we decided to push offshore for sails and hope that we could find some mahi as well.
We got to the spot and put lines out...not 5 minutes later we had a sail up on the right teaser. I stepped up to the plate with the circle hook pitch bait....whiff. Damn it. 10 minutes later a fish came up on the left....hey batta batta batta swing....whiff. Man this circle hook stuff is tougher than I thought it was going to be.
Well, the second fish I whiffed on dropped back in the spread and captain Franky nailed it with the bridge pole and handed it down...I had just been bitch slapped, and the sail was going to pay the price
After a few nice aerial displays...
Dave brought the fish up for a couple quick pics....I love my face in the first one...just classic!
Well, half an hour later it was my buddy Deke's turn to fight one, and again after some great aerials...
It was a caught fish.
Well now I was on a mission...Franky had just expertly hooked up two fish, and I had two strikes on me. I wasn't about to strike out. I got my chance when a fish came up on the left....I dropped it back but it had already switched to the right....I followed it over, but it had dropped back to the right long....followed it back there, and finally found joy with my spinning rod.
At this point we realized that it looked like we might be in trouble with the meat fishing, and Franky suggested that we try the reef again. We headed there, and after a few drops with his new jigging set up, Squidrig found joy on a nice silky snapper with a 3 oz hammered diamond jig.
He handed the set up over to our buddy Todd, and he added one more to the mix for the grill.
We were now set for dinner, and after catching some giant rainbow runners and a nice amberjack, we called it a day.
Prior to the second day, I called Dave and told him that it would only be Squidrig and myself, and that I really wanted to get on some roosters and give the inshore fishing a try. His exact words were "I despise inshore fishing, but I'll give it 100% if that's what you want to do. I just feel like my skills are really for the bills."
Well it was what we wanted to do, and after the day we had, I can't figure out why he doesn't like doing the inshore stuff as much as the offshore as he's good at it.
After stocking up on a live well of sardines, it was off to a nice drop a few miles to the south. We were bump trolling the livies with circle hooks, and had a great pick of big cero mackerel, jack crevalles, black jacks, and a nice rooster.
Next we went to one of Dave's secret grouper spots, and very shortly after dropping a bait down, Squidrig found the fish that he'd come down to Costa Rica for...
After re-filling the livewell, we headed north to a river mouth, and had a steady pick of more ceros, as well as some more jacks. Boy can those jacks put up a fight on light tackle!
A few days later we found ourselves on the beach. The girls wanted to relax, and I wanted to try my luck at the surf fishing. I brought down countless lures, plastics, etc, and tried throwing a ton of different things.
Then I tried a white 9" Sluggo with a 1 3/4 oz lead head, and on the first cast it got hammered.
Then I switched it up to the Ranger, which I had heard a rumor was good for the Roosters....well, before the hookup it was getting chased by this fish with reckless abandon.
To top off all of this wildlife on the water, every day we were greeted at our house by scenes like this....
Yes indeed, Costa Rica is the place to be.....Pura Vida
Shoe
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Originally Posted by Dave Sikorski
