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I enjoyed several sessions of surf fishing during our stay in Puerto Jimenez. Conditions ranged from big surf during high tides to calm dawns with low tides. The water was always approximately 84 - 85 degrees F. The more serious of my attempts were on the mornings of January 16, 2018 (low tide, pictured below) and January 20, 2018 (falling tide, clear and calm.) On these mornings, I hiked down the beach in pre-dawn darkness and fished hard from before 6 AM until 7:45 or so. By that time, the sun had climbed, the days were hot, and any action right along the beach had seemingly ceased. Upon arriving at Agua Dulce lodge on the morning of January 13, 2018, I made a beeline to the beach. The tide was rising and the surf was pounding (much more so than I had expected.) The water was clear (except for surf-riled sediment) and wonderfully warm. In just a short, splashing visit, I saw several fish that I tentatively identified as jacks and blue runners. I noted an osprey diving into the surf just a few feet from shore, and I strolled down the beach (for about 20 minutes) to the mouth of a small tidal creek. This was a recommended starting point for my surf fishing adventures. Later that afternoon, it was just too hot to walk that far, so I chose to cast closer to our lodging. I focused on a couple of obvious cuts in the sand bar. With the big surf and high tide, I had to rely on plugs, spoons and tins to reach beyond the bar and to maintain contact with my lure. I'd not much hope for any catching success, and I had no bites in an hour or so of effort. My next surf session was the morning of January 16, 2018. Awake at 5 AM, I walked down the beach to the creek mouth. Low tide revealed some sand structures here, and conditions seemed favorable in the low light. I tried several lures (Hogy Epoxy Jig, Gotcha plug, bucktail tipped with a Gulp! Sand Flea) but settled into throwing a Gulp! Jerk Shad on a 1/2-ounce lead-head jig. After all, anything would likely eat this. I had a couple of taps and follows, but finally connected at the very end of a long cast. My first Costa Rican surf fish was just a one-pound jack crevalle. Nothing glorious; but still a fun and satisfying encounter. By 7:30 AM or so, the sun was high enough and the air hot enough to send me back to the hotel pool for a cool-down and then some breakfast. On the afternoon of January 16, 2018, the skies were overcast and rain threatened. The tide was high and the surf was once again pounding, but I gave it a shot, anyway. Both spoons and Gulp! were given a fair chance, and I really did work the shoreline lip and trough hard, but once again, I revealed no fish. On my last morning on the Golfito (January 20, 2018), I was once again in position near the stream outlet before sunrise. Conditions were fishy! Currents, trough, lip, cuts; all were obvious. And, there were many signs of baitfish and small predators. I was suddenly inspired to switch from the jig to the Hogy Epoxy Jig; conditions seemed perfect for skipping this lure across the water's smooth surface. My first fish came pretty quickly; another small jack. I enjoyed fair amount of action for the next hour. Surface strikes, follows, splashes and brief touches were interspersed with the landing of three more jacks to a couple of pounds. ![]() As the sun rose and the brightness increased, this activity slowed. I switched to the jig and Gulp! Jerk Shad. Almost immediately, I caught another jack. I noticed some obviously larger fish cruising offshore, tails out, and then some surface action within reach. At the end of another long cast, I connected again. After a nice little fight on my light tackle (which had been dictated by my only travel rod), I pulled my first Costa Rican Roosterfish from the surf. He was just a little guy, but still a milestone of sorts for me. Plus, K had just walked down the beach to visit. She arrived just in time to watch the fight and to document the landing and release. This was a fitting and beautiful end to my Costa Rican fishing for 2018. What do I think about this? I had some doubts about having brought some tackle on the trip; it cost a few bucks to check the luggage each way (hooks and lines can be dangerous, after all), it was a little distracting, and I probably could have used a little more relaxation. But how could I live on the fish-filled beach for a week and not fish? I was forced to be smart and constrain my tackle selection by the logistics (and possession of a single travel rod), and I think I was forced to fish smart with this tackle once there. I believe I could seriously get into surf fishing given enough time and access; I appreciate the hunting aspect of choosing where to fish. I only caught small fish, but that was okay; they all pulled at least a little drag, and each was a pleasure to encounter. I enjoyed fishing with the Hogy Epoxy Jigs, and I do really believe, when in doubt, that a Gulp!/jig combo is not a bad choice. Ever. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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Date: January 19, 2018 Body of Water: Golfito Dulce, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica Boat: HepCat With: A; Cory and Russo from @tropicfins, Tropic Fins Adventures, http://tropicfins.com Target: Roosterfish, Snapper and whatever else we might come across Time: 7 AM to 4:00 PM Conditions: Tropical; bright and clear; water temps around 85 degrees F; generally calm and easy conditions With so many experiences and the big adventure of the previous day behind, it was time to relax and simply enjoy some fun fishing on the calm waters of Golfito Dulce with A. Bait was reportedly easy to make, so we went directly to a new spot, an isolated hump in about 45 feet of water. Our initial couple of drops with weighted, live sardines resulted in a series of pesky, snipping bites. But on my third drop or so, I had a confident take. The rod loaded nicely. I turned the fish fairly easily, initially, but then it made a supercharged rush for the bottom. This was simply fun! I was soon able to make out the fish; it was clearly an African Pompano trying to hug the bottom. I eased it to within 10 feet of the boat before the hook slipped out; another photo opportunity lost, but I did get the best part of an impressive tussle with this fish. When a few more drops resulted in only a smallish yellowtail snapper and a very impressive blue runner, we decided to relocate to another hump. I moved to the bow to re-hydrate, and commented to A on the impressive depth of the Gulf and the current lines/weed edges within sight. Little did I know that Cory had set out a dead sardine to skip along the surface along a prominent weed edge as we re-located, and I was surprised to hear a reel's drag erupt as we motored along. I grabbed the rod to the sight of a leaping mahi, and I enjoyed catching this nice gaffer on the day's light tackle. This bull provided much more fight and challenge than the previous day's even though it was a bit smaller. Plus, I'd never enjoyed the fight of a dolphin fish in such calm water! What a nice, bonus fish! We relocated to an isolated rock near the southeast point guarding the mouth of the Gulf. We switched over to slow trolling sardines from the stern while I cast the Yozuri Hydro popper from the bow. One of my first casts was smashed by another nice Spanish Mackerel. I enjoy these toothy speeders! We continued to circle this rock, and as we approached the same area (the approximate north side of the rock), a very nice rooster announced its presence by flaring its dorsal fin through the water's surface as it tracked and chased my popper. I kept the fish engaged and enraged for just about the entire length of the cast, but as it came close to the boat, it flared off to the side. My disappointment was short-lived, though, because just then a sardine got smashed. A hooked up with a strong fish (I suspect this same rooster.) She fought it for a few minutes (during which it ran out a lot of line!), but the leader wore through before we could ever see this fish for sure. This was, perhaps, our only tackle failure of the entire trip, but to be fair, we were fishing around rocks, and I suspect that fish knew each one of them. Oh, well! After this, we spent most of the rest of the day pleasantly prospecting humps in the Gulf from about 50 to about 150 feet deep. One in particular paid off handsomely. This one provided a variety of jacks and snapper (Cubera and Yellowtail) and a host of other chances. The first highlight from this particular hump (which featured a prominent drop from 125 to 150 feet of water) was a double-header. While A was kept occupied by a sizable jack crevalle, I was doing my best to defeat a beautiful Broomtail Grouper. At about 30 pounds, it was quite a beast! Captain Cory had been toying with a couple of speed jigging sticks during the day; the Okuma Cedros with a Shimano free-fall jig had caught my eye the second I'd stepped off the dock. I asked if I could try it, and I was welcome to do so! Two pumps into my retrieve on my initial drop, and I was on! I truly enjoyed this opportunity, and the Horse-eye Jack that I ultimately landed was just another bonus experience. It was a perfect match for this equipment and a nice introduction to this technique for me. I should have retired from speed jigging when I caught a very nice, approximately 5-pound Yellowtail Snapper on the next drop. Having gone 2-for-2, I then entered a barren stretch, and I even lost a couple of Cory's jigs to the sticky bottom. (I should confess, here, that I was perhaps not using the free-fall jigs properly; I was rapidly pumping and retrieving them through the column in a 3-dimensional walk of the dog. I guess these free-fall jigs are designed to be used more modestly, and to get hit on their seductive fall. I guess I was lucky, in my ignorance; but my initial tactics did work!) The day was winding down. There were fish to clean, and a report came in that a boat had done well on Iguana Reef earlier that day. We hit it (hard) for the last half hour or so of fishing. Mackerel plagued our live-lined sardines, while I raised only a single fish (a rooster?) on the popper. Cory exclaimed "Perfect!" just as this fish came unbuttoned. I know we were both rooting for that last-minute, 40-pound rooster to show up! We worked hard, right to the end. But I knew when it was time to grab my last cold Imperial of the trip. My time boat fishing with Tropic Fins was over, at least for 2018. What do I have to say about this? This was a pleasant and productive way to end the trip. The calm Gulf waters and A's relaxed but engaged company were a perfect way to wind down. And I got additional new experiences galore; a nice mahi on light tackle, an African Pomano sighting, a large roosterfish chasing my popper for 70 yards or more, a large and beautiful grouper, and some speed-jigging success. Wow! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways Date: January 18, 2018 Body of Water: Pacific Ocean, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica Boat: HepCat With: K; Cory and Russo from @tropicfins, Tropic Fins Adventures, http://tropicfins.com Target: Sailfish, Mahi, Yellowfin Tuna and whatever else we might come across Time: 7 AM to 4:30 PM Conditions: Tropical; overcast with sporadic rain showers; water temps around 84-85 degrees F; calmer, but still approximate 5-foot, short and choppy seas We were greeted at the dock by HepCat, loaded with an assortment of trolling gear. I knew we were headed offshore! With good sailfish reports from the previous day, we cleared the mouth of the Gulf and almost immediately set a trolling spread; we were starting our search for sails, mahi or tuna in just 110 feet of water. Cory and Russo set the spread with incredible efficiency, and soon we were trolling at 6 knots or so. Our 6-rod, balanced spread included skipping or swimming ballyhoo off the outriggers; a squid or chugging lure off each corner; a skirted ballyhoo and a large, marlin-sized chugger flat-lined well behind the boat; and chugging teasers off the halfway point of each outrigger. A ballyhoo was rigged and ready on a circle hook to drop back to any visitors within the spread. We were fishing by 7:45 AM. ![]() Conditions weren't really conducive to finding any fish; there was no observable color change, weed line or bird activity to target. We spent the first 45 minutes of our fishing day covering water, circling out to 125 feet of water, but with no action. At about 8:30 AM, Captain Cory got the call that another boat had found large tuna offshore. Within minutes, the spread was in and we were pointed offshore. Soon thereafter, a group of birds pointed the way, and were soon engaged in a high speed hunt as Captain Cory tried to position the boat comfortably ahead of a large herd of dolphins chasing bait. As we got closer, I could see tuna porpoising themselves and smashing bait on the surface. I moved to the bow to throw the Yuzuri Hydro popper, while K awaited a strike on the live-lined sardines off the stern. It didn't take long at all for a 20-pound or so yellowfin tuna to eat a sardine. It was tail-wrapped and didn't provide much of a fight for K on the 30-class tackle, but it was still the largest tuna we'd ever encountered and a punctuation mark on one of the coolest, wildest encounters I'd ever seen. We didn't even pause for pictures, though, as the herd was quickly on the move, and we were either working with or competing with a couple of other boats for another shot at more and/or larger tuna. We positioned ourselves a few more times. My popper went unnoticed, and our baits untouched, even though chumming with injured sardines produced many tuna explosions within casting distance of the boat. Birds sitting on the water were my most reliable casting target, and I did have one chase and explosive rejection, but still the popper remained untouched. On perhaps our fifth stop of this chase, a sardine rod went off while I was casting from the bow. As we'd discussed, K went to get strapped in to the harness to fight the fish. I planned to continue with the popper, but did't have a chance to, as the second sardine rod went off before I could make the next cast. K and I spent the next half hour or more with our tuna double header. I'll be honest, this was an excellent experience, but I'm not sure it was fun. Fish of this size on the heavy tackle with appropriate drag settings represented a lot of work! Both of our tuna ran to the bottom (about 145 feet) and wanted to stay there. I was able to make line up only inches at a time, but I was able to get the fish within color range (30 feet?) fairly quickly. However, my fish got super stubborn at that level. Meanwhile, K's fish remained near bottom for just about the entire duration of the fight. Mine finally relented and came to the gaff. Captain Cory then tethered it to a parachute chord stringer, but kept it hooked and told me to stand by. He had to help Russo with K's fish, which now seemed determined to find HepCat's motors. In the heaving seas, the tether on my fish broke, and soon I was fighting it again! But shortly thereafter, both fish hit the deck, to everyone's relief. What an experience, especially to have shared it with K! This was as close to being within a Nature documentary as I'd ever been; I'd experienced something that I knew happened every day, but that I couldn't even ask to be part of. I am truly thankful for having experienced this wildness. Captain Cory radioed his thanks to the boat that had alerted us to this offshore action. Then he asked us; did we want to try to do it again? K and I agreed, that while this was a fantastic experience, our bodies were at least temporarily shot; we thought that returning to trolling for sails and/or mahi might be our best bet for the rest of an enjoyable day. And troll we did. We spent most of the rest of the day in about 125 feet of water with the spread working the water. We were close to another boat as they fought and landed a sail; and we had two brief visitors within our spread. I didn't see either, but both briefly touched our far-back (about 100 feet?) marlin chugger and pulled a bit of drag. Cory thought the first encounter was a marlin, while Russo announced the second to be a mahi. We were in the game; we were close; and both K and I were content with the excellent day. Our time was really winding down when, at about 2:30 PM, the same long flat-line with the dolphin-green marlin chugger started screaming. I grabbed the rod and quickly overpowered a beautiful bull dolphin. At first it was electric blue; but it morphed into a bright yellow phase as it sped away from the boat and jumped. At perhaps 20 pounds and about 40 inches fork length, it was easily my biggest mahi ever. I figured our fishing day was over at this point. I was pleased with the day, even though sails had never shown themselves to us. But now we had a mahi to clean and a bunch of extra sardines, so we motored inshore to Matapalo. Here, in about the same water where I'd caught the Blue Trevally the day before, we live chummed and flat-lined sardines for whatever might show up; I think the goal was to get K another fish. While she was bothered with mostly toothy critters and a series of swings, misses and cutoffs, I enjoyed catching several hard-pulling jacks to about 10 pounds. The last two were aptly-named Horse-eye Jacks; I enjoyed making their acquaintance, as they were speedy and strong. We were pretty happy, but spent, by the time we returned to the dock at 4:30 PM. In all honesty, I believe K and I were asleep by 7:30 PM. What do I have to say about this? What an experience; and I was pleased to notice the calm and serenity that encompassed me when our tuna hit the deck. I knew this trip was made; I did't need anything else to happen. But I also knew that there was still plenty of time for new, beautiful and exciting things to occur. I also knew that we'd made all the right choices; this vacation was the right thing to do with our time and money, and Tropic Fins was the right outfitter to be hosting us. I'm not often that content. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways |
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