Pacific Picks Up; Barra Just Keeps Getting Better

Action on the Pacific coast appears to be picking up, with the marlin bite apparently to the north and sails not red-hot, but steady. No reports from any of the boat operators out of Quepos on the central coast and farther south.

Kerry Ruhlow, my 12-year-old grand-daughter, caught and released a striped marlin and a sailfish Sunday while fishing with her father Rick as guests on Tyson’s Pride, a luxury sportfisher, working in clean water 16 miles straight out from Carrillo. There are apparently fish north of there as well, as Rick said skipper Richard Chellemi found marlin north of Guiones the following day.

About the time we think tarpon fishing is about as good as it can get at Barra Colorado, on the northern Caribbean coast, what happens? It just gets better.

Some examples from anglers fishing at the Río Colorado Lodge through last weekend,  where action is at the river mouth and justoutside:

Karen Kohen from Arkansas and Lisa Brunetti from Mississippi jumped 25 tarpon and boated seven in two days.

Don and Dana Kohen, also from Mississippi, jumped 20 and boated four, one of those more than 150 pounds, again in two days on the water.

Pennsylvania angler Jim Croner, fishing flies, jumped 16 and boated eight in two days.

Phil Hoover from Florida, in the first two days of a seven-day trip, fishing alone, jumped 34 tarpon and boated seven.Hoover has been coming down to help keep the tarpon population under control every year for as long as I can remember.

While this is mighty good fishing any way you look at it, Río Colorado Lodge owner Dan Wise said May tarpon action is traditionally red-hot, adding that what might be a record of sorts occurred in May a few years ago when a group of 20 members of the Florida Fun Fishermen’s Club had 670 of the silver rockets in the air and boated 172 in three days.

Fishing should continue to be good through the summer as normal, and the lodge is offering a special 50% discount for Costa Rican residents and nationals from now through the end of May,Wise said. For more information, call the lodge office at the Tryp Corobicí hotel in San José at 232-8610.