Tico angler Rodolfo Gómez proved yet again that you don’t even need a boat to catch monster fish in Costa Rica, hauling in a 54.56-pound Pacific snook (Centropomus spp.) Saturday while casting a lure at the mouth of the Barú River at Dominical, on the southern Pacific coast (see photo at right).
Depending on the line test Gómez was using, this could bring the total number of Pacific snook records caught in Costa Rica to six. Five Atlantic snook world records have also been taken on the country’s Caribbean coast.
The all-tackle record for Pacific snook is 57 pounds, 12 ounces, taken by George Beck in August 1991 while trolling the mouth of the Naranjo River near Quepos, on the central Pacific coast.
Reports from boat operators along the coast were much the same as reported here last week, with good inshore fishing to the south and fair to good action on sails, dorado and small tuna along the northernmost Pacific coast, with occasional marlin spicing the action.
On the northern Caribbean coast, Río Colorado Lodge reports that rains in the high country brought high and muddy water to the river, but didn’t slow things for anglers working the ocean outside the river mouth. Lodge operator Dan Wise said all of his boats are hooking up with nice-size tarpon and big jack crevalle.
Robert Dick from the U.S. state of Florida fished two days last week, jumping six tarpon with two to the boat on his first day. Fishing only an hour the second day, he nailed two more, for a total of eight in the air and four to the boat for release.
Between tarpon, he was kept busy on the big jacks, then went up the Tortuguero Canal to fish light tackle for panfish.
Luther Gatrel, Alex Weisjkopt and Randy Dill from Alabama all scored big tarpon on a one-day trip, Wise reports, adding that the lodge still has three weeks to go on the $100-per-day discount offered this time of year.
He adds that the big turtles are now coming ashore to lay eggs, offering visiting anglers and those on the river tour some nighttime entertainment.
