Tarpon Safari 2008

Rio San Juan Tarpon Tournament 2008

Not a lot of tarpon were caught, but a lot were hooked and lost. I didn’t even see the two sides of beef whose initial strike and run broke my too light rod, and then next my too light line. But son Geoffrey’s fish made it to the boat, made it to the scales and made it into the record books as the third largest fish of the event!

Five of us drove from Atenas up to Los Chiles in Rick Mazza’s Mahindra King Kong Kab. What a truck! Smooth, fast and used very little fuel. We went through the border crossing and boat trip to San Carlos, Nicaragua as described in El Castillo, my earlier article about the Rio San Juan.

Raquel from Sabalos Lodgr met us at the dock, helped us through customs and immigration and got us to the downriver water taxi with only a few minutes to spare. Registration for the tournament took those few minutes and we learned that about a hundred entrants were expected. The hour and a half downriver run was a delight for Geoff and Rick and Roberto Muggli and John Difazio who had never been in this part of the world. Herons in three sizes and three colors, anhingas, swifts, congo monkeys, kingfishers and the occasional caiman dotted the dense foliage of the shoreline. Rough sawn plank houses peek out from that shore now and then, and all of them fly the multicolor flag of bright pink, orange and yellow tee shirts and shorts.

Yadro, 70 something, and wife Rebecca, 18 something, waved from the Sabalos Lodge dock. Finally after a three hour drive from Atenas to Los Chiles, an hour plus trip down the Rio Frio and onto Lago Cocibolca, and another boat ride of an hour and half down the Rio San Juan, not to mention lots of waiting between each leg of the journey, the adventure began.

John had flown in from Virginia where only in the last few years he had started to fish with a neighbor there in Vienna. Roberto lives in Atenas and, like me, fishing is his passion. Especially ice fishing in Minnesota. Rick might have wet a line sometime, somewhere during his oil soaked, Semper Fi, coffee selling, colorful career but memories of it were vague. I handed Geoff his first spincast rod and reel when he was five and we caught sunfish. He went on to light tackle spinning for largemouth black bass and then to the flyrod for trout, and has by now out fished me in every variety of fish. Especially tarpon!

At 5:30am on September 13 the contest began as two boats with the five of us shoved off from the dock at our lodge. After a ten minute run the trolling began. We used large, medium diving Rapalas in grey and silver and firetiger colors. The basic technique is to work the deep run out in front of El Castillo and each of the river mouths, alternating with trolling trips up the several smaller rivers feeding the Rio San Juan. In the rivers we caught snook and machaca. Circling the river mouths was best for tarpon. All but one of us had them say hello, several were hooked and were on long enough for an initial run and a few jumps. Tarpon are strong, primitive fish with very tough mouths and the difficulty of setting the hook combined with violent head shakes in the air makes for easy un-hooking.

During the first morning Roberto boated a couple of snook over 12 lbs and Rick, Geoff and I each landed some smaller snook and a few machaca. John, as they say, “jumped” a couple of tarpon one of which Roberto reports was probably a prize winner.

We went to Cofalito’s restaurant for lunch. Cofalito was our lead guide and is one of few licensed guides in El Castillo. Piña, also licensed, and Hamilton and Beto were our other guides. All of them are serious fisherman and very knowledgeable of the river and how to fish it. Cofalito and Piña debated locations and techniques all day and teased the hell out of each other if the final destination did not produce. This Heckel and Jeckel pair was a delight and kept us entertained when the fish were not paying attention. While at lunch a center console walk-around pulled up to the dock just below the restaurant and unloaded the largest fish I have ever seen caught in fresh water, 140 pounds. It was and remained the largest fish of the tourney. Geoff was pumped!

The afternoon was a boat ride. Hot, then rain, then troll, troll, troll. My back began to ache and Rick napped, hands still locked to rod and reel. He awoke and I sat up camera in hand as Geoff yelled “I got one!”, and he DID. A head the size of a small keg of beer came out of the water followed by a matching mirror sided body. It was so huge that it failed to clear the water rising to three quarters of its body at best before splashing back like the fat kid at the pool doing belly flops.

Leaps became fewer and further between, and runs became shorter but still powerful as the fight between Geoff and His Sablao continued. The first half hour went like it was five minutes but then time began to drag and Geoff began to tire and I began to fear that the hook would straighten or the line would break or the lure would dislodge during a jump, or… The guys were all like boxing ring attendants, giving Geoff bottles of water, handing him a lit cigarette or a towel and always words of encouragement. Deep dives close to the boat were the most threatening. The line could foul on the engine. Cofalito worked the boat away when the fish approached as Piña, gaff in hand, sat at Geoff’s feet giving instructions to both Geoff and Cofalito. Another half hour passed. Then during the final half hour the fish tired and began to only roll near the surface and could no longer resist the constant pressure Geoff had skillfully applied. After two near misses right at the boat Piña gaffed the lower jaw and we had our tarpon. The fight had taken us so far down river that the dock and weigh station were only a couple of hundred yards away and we dragged the fish alongside right up to the dock.

The crowd and tournament officials gathered as Geoff’s catch was dragged up the boarding steps of the dock and over to the scales. The closest guy to the fish was the man whose fish was so far largest. He was as elated as Geoff was disappointed when the scale read 104. That disappointment faded fast as Geoff grinned for the photographers. Everyone wanted a photo and I had to elbow my way into the paparazzi to get my shots in.Geoffrey Stiles, Sabalo, 104#, 13/9/08 went up on the board. (Geoff’s middle name became his apellido for this tournament.) He was in second place! But would it last?

Exhausted from a long days travel followed by a long day fishing, we headed in just before dusk for a dinner of our snook and early to bed for the final tournament day.

5:am on the 14^th, Cofalito wanted to work the Sabalos Grande River before river traffic, swimming kids and washer women put the snook down. He was right and we caught more snook that morning than any other This river stay wide and deep for quite a distance and would be perfect for fly rod popping along the bank below overhanging trees. Snook think poppers are frogs or flailing fish, machaca think a fruit has fallen from the trees and attack with their piranha like teeth. Both fight well, the snook going deep and the machaca taking to the air, and the snook/robalo is especially fine eating. After weighing in our snook at the Hotel Monte Cristo dock we took an eight pounder to a riverside restaurant for lunch. Cofalito thought that we might be in contention for the most total weight of snook caught during the tournament so we made sure all snook caught were recorded with officials.

We took a couple more snook in another little river, and then when trolling it’s confluence with the Rio San Juan Rick well hooked what looked like a 60 or 70 pound tarpon that stayed on for more than the first couple of jumps. But then on a long, deep run the line went slack. The fish had rubbed it off on the bottom, or … who knows? But that’s why it’s called “fishing” not “catching.” Another hour of trolling and we were home. But not for the night, tonight was awards night and fiesta in San Carlos. We had barely enough time for a shower, change of clothes and a cold Toña before Cofalito and the boys were back for our trip to San Carlos. High speed against a stinging rain prevented napping and made for a long hour and half trip.

We went Direct to the central, official weight tally. Geoff had been pushed down to third by a 114 pounder caught late afternoon of the second and final day. A 104 taken after Geoff’s finished fourth. A commercial cooler full of beer for the entrants gave us our first beer of the festival. The town square was rimmed with food and beer tents and a high stage where the Victoria Girls, think Budweiser girls only hotter, tried to shake their scanty costumes off all night. In addition to the contestants everybody from within a hundred miles was there, hundreds and hundreds of beer-in-hand guys and families and groups of teenagers. The restaurant tents were jammed and we stood in a light rain eating vigaron and waiting for the award presentation.

Finally someone came to the microphone at the biggest elevated stage and called for the officials: the event coordinator, the head of the tourist bureau, the mayor of San Carlos, the candidates for the next election, and a bunch more – each made a fifteen minute speech, except for the woman from the tourist bureau who spoke for almost 45 minutes. The light rain continued.

Finally the tournament official started the prizes, but not for fishing; it was a raffle of door prizes using our entry numbers. Backpacks and tackle boxes and fishing rods, I thought it would never end. When the announcer called out JEFF, our ears perked up and Rick and Roberto shoved Geoff to the stage where he accepted a raffle won backpack. When JEFF was called again we listened closer and the number was not Geoff’s, it was some Canadian fellow – Geoff had snatched somebody else’s prize and was known thereafter as “Geoff de Canada”

Most snook, biggest snook, most guapote, biggest guapote, biggiest drum, the awards trolled on. Then 4^th largest tarpon and the photographers crowded in as formal portraits of winner and officials was taken by the tournament photographer. When Geoff was called out again, it was Geoff Lively and he mounted the stage to accept third place in the Sabalo Real category. He got a huge trophy, a beautiful carving of a local fish, a quart of Flor de Cana 18 year old rum and a certificate. We all cheered and he and the other winners stood on stage grinning.

It was so late that we all slept on the floor of the Sabalo Lodge’s office in San Carlos rather than risk the night run back down the Rio San Juan to the Lodge itself.

Up at dawn and the return trip by boat, boat, boat and car to Atenas. Ready for 2009!

G. Martin Lively

2 August 2009