Deep Sea Fishing on a Beer Budget
By G. Martin Lively
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
March 18, 2002
You can fish the blue water of Costa Rica in millionaire style and maybe catch a huge marlin. It will cost you about a $1,000 a day for the charter. Its great, but often more work than any but the very fit may want. I prefer to fish a little closer in, in a more spartan craft, for medium-sized dorado and tuna and save about $800 a day!
My wife Jean caught a 46-inch dorado while she and I and our son Geoff were trolling out of Playa Hermosa de Jacó. (We each got a dorado and several small tuna, but her’s was the big one.) Geoff and I had visited Hermosa Beach at dawn the day before our outing. I talked to a number of fisherman and fishing boat owners who were there getting ready for their customers of that day. Each pointed out their boat bobbing at anchor a few hundred yards from the shore and answered questions about the kind of fishing Geoff and I wanted to do.
The owner of one of the better looking boats described his tackle, and where and how he intended to troll for the dorado, tuna and maybe a sailfish that we were after. A little negotiation over price (bringing our own lunch and drinks saved $50), and he agreed to take us out for five hours the next morning at 6 a.m.
The same scenario has worked for me at Tarcoles, Tamarindo, Parrita, and Isla Damas in Costa Rica, as well as in various fishing villages in Panama and Mexico. Mostly you will be dealing with fisherman who would just as soon take a sport fisherman out that day as to fish for meat for the market.
Increasingly, tourism has brought about a new small craft charter business. Speaking a little Spanish helps a lot. You can find and hire a fisherman to take you fishing using English, but you may not be able to make your needs known or to ascertain the equipment and techniques available. (Take a bilingual friend with you on the day before the outing.) If dorado and tuna are being caught not too far offshore, they are my first target. Trolling with 6- to 8-inch surface skipping lures, especially around weed lines or any floating object will bring them up; and who knows, maybe a pez bella or wahoo, too?
If nothing shows while trolling offshore, head back in and switch to casting medium diving, minnow imitating lures around rocky outcroppings. Our children and grandchildren and friends, both avid fishers and first-timers, have joined us on these medium-game fishing trips. We have caught dorado, white tuna, black fin tuna, yellow fin tuna, sierra, pargo and a variety of other snappers. A couple of tuna fillets for sushi, some dorado fillets for the grill and a photo for friends back home Pura Vida!
Jean and Martin live in Leesburg, Va, and Atenas, Costa Rica Tell him your Central American fish story at gmlively@gmail.com.
