Sport Fishing Magazine - Hot Spots

Costa Rica Revisited

Jason Cannon

My wife, Lori and I have come back to the Crocodile Bay Lodge at Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica -- 6 months after experiencing the best fishing of our lives. This time we decided to come back during the billfish season. While our main purpose goal here is photographing sailfish, I would also like to see if my wife can score a women's world record cubera snapper on a fly rod.

Day 1
We started fishing for sailfish at around 8am. Within 30 minutes, I had my first sail (in my entire life) to the boat. From that point on, Lori and I combined to release 8 of 13 sailfish -- with several over 100 pounds. We could have easily caught twice that many, but as a photographer, this situation was a dream come true for me, so we spent a lot of time posing for cameras. Also, Sport Fishing contributing photographer Tim Simos brought his underwater gear and shot some beautiful shots of both hooked and free-swimming sails from under the surface.

I couldn't believe how many sailfish swam around us. A glance in at least one direction throughout the day revealed a school of tailing fish. From 11:30 till 3:00 we didn't go longer than 15 minutes without a strike (when the baits were in the water). The biggest highlight of the day came when Lori and I fought a double hook-up and got both fish boatside and released. What a thrill!

Lure of the day:
Actually, there were two. One involved a bait-n-switch with dead ballyhoo as the tossed bait. We trolled until a sail started thrashing in the baits, then we cast the ballyhoo directly behind the lure and hooked up within seconds. As far as lures, the 4-inch green/black concave head from Todd's Rigs and Lures proved fatal to these sails. We had other colors in the spread, but this particular lure got nearly every strike after our guide Luis Rodriquez decided to change the colors and sizes mid-morning.

Tomorrow we'll spend one more day offshore, then we will try the "pargo" or cubera snapper on fly.