Sonny Kocsis fished his boat the Wetass II out of Flamingo on the northern Pacific coast six days last week, and reports going eight marlin released for 12 hooked, along with 20 sailfish and eight tuna. The largest of the marlin was estimated at 400 pounds, and the two biggest tuna, caught last Sunday,went 50 and 210 pounds.
The water is slick and calm, and the billfish action 20 to 30 miles straight out from nearby Tamarindo, with another 10 miles or so to where the tuna are working.
Kocsis said that business-wise this has been one of the slowest seasons ever, with very few fishermen and not many boats getting out, despite excellent conditions and plenty of fish along the northern coast.
The bite extends south of Tamarindo, where Kitty Cat skipper Rob Gordon said he has been scoring on sails and tuna every day he has fished, working the ledge where the water depth drops off for sails and chasing the leaping dolphins farther out that signal the tuna working bait schools. Tuna are running to 80 or 90 pounds, he said.
Herman Méndez of Green Tours, a Jacóbased company that books a lot of fishing, reports plenty of inshore action on roosterfish, dorado and tuna, but not much going offshore. That was the only report I received from the central Pacific coast.
All the way south, the only one I heard from this week was Todd Staley at CrocodileBay. He said there are a lot of fish, but the lodge will be closed for a month beginning Oct. 1.
Staley adds there have been very few anglers, but even though they had only three boats out, they scored well last week with a 450-pound marlin and tuna to 200 pounds, and one day went 15 sailfish releases for 60 up, though they were gone the following day.
On the northern Caribbean coast, Río Colorado Lodge operator Dan Wise reports beautiful weather and plenty of tarpon action at the river mouth, just outside and offshore on the rip line.
Phil Hoover and sons Matt and Drew from Naples, Florida, were back again fishing for seven days, and jumped 33 tarpon with 13 boated. The Hoover family has been coming down two or three times a year for as long as I can remember.
Wise said Wally Lebrun and new wife Aurora surprised everyone by trolling up 16 yellowfin tuna in two days, ranging from 20 to 35 pounds. There are often stray tuna caught in the region, but it’s not often we see that many at Barra Colorado.
A group of 16 anglers came all the way from Japan last week on their third annual trip arranged by Mogi Tackle and Carpenter Lure companies. They scored big on tarpon, also nailing a 25-pound wahoo and boating several nice snook,Wise said.
“They lost a lot of fish as they insisted on fishing top water and jerk baits with very light tackle, a technique we do not usually use here,” he reported. “On Sunday morning alone, they jumped six to eight big tarpon per boat with two to the gaff.”
Wise added that they have already booked another trip for next year.
Attorney Robert Dick, from Madison, Alabama, boated his first-ever tarpon, estimated at 130 pounds, and also got spooled on a monster snook,Wise reported.
