Northern Pacific Steady; Excellent Year for Tarpon

Boats on the northern Pacific coast are doing well, releasing a few sails every day, with dorado and tuna abundant and steady action on those hard-hitting wahoo. Lake Arenal has been treating anglers to plenty of guapote action and there is still no letup in the tarpon action on the Caribbean.

On the northern Pacific coast, the Wetass II was working off Flamingo Monday, and by early afternoon had already gone four releases for eight sails hooked.

Kitty Cat skipper Rob Gordon reported from Carrillo that he has been getting a lot of half-day trips, but is apparently sending his fishermen home with a smile, with one or two sailfish, plenty of tuna, dorado and some big wahoo.

Gordon said that on his last half-day trip Sunday, they nailed six yellowfin tuna, one sailfish and six dorado to 16 pounds, and had a big wahoo chew a Rapala lure in half. He was fishing about two miles straight off Carrillo in 225 feet of water.

He also advises me that my-son-the-fisherman Rick Ruhlow, who also works out of Carrillo but never bothers to give me a report, has been going about two sail releases a day, along with tuna, dorado and some wahoo.

The wahoo have been running big, to about 40 pounds. They are among the fastest fish and strongest fighters of anything that swims, and they have a mean set of teeth. They are also one of the best eating fish in the ocean.

On the central Pacific coast, J.P. Sportfishing reported Monday that Quepos boats are releasing about two sails a day.We had no reports from the Golfito region down south.

On the Caribbean coast, Río Colorado Lodge reports that Roger Harzell from Oregon was there on a three-day trip, and as of noon Monday had gone nine tarpon released for 20 hooked.

A couple of days prior to that, Ohio angler James Doty with a party of five fishermen came in on the jungle river boat tour and fished just one day, getting six of 25 tarpon hooked to the boat for release.

This has been one of the best tarpon years that I can remember in my more than 20 years in Costa Rica.

There’s plenty of rainbow-bass action at Lake Arenal, where guide Tercio Hidalgo fished La Fortuna resident Robert McIntosh over the weekend and scored a 10.2-pound rainbow bass on a Rat-L-Trap lure, fishing 25 feet down.

Hidalgo reports beautiful weather, lots of smaller pinto guapote and a very low water level in the big lake.

Skippers, lodge operators and anglers are invited to contact Jerry with fishing reports by noon Monday of each week; call 282-6743 or e-mail jruhlow@racsa.co.cr.