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Kinembe's Costa Rica Fishing Reports
Fishing Reports New Home:
While these reports will remain here, future posts of my fishing reports have moved and can now be seen at www.kinembe2.com/blog, please check them out.
May 7 2007
- The first week of May this year brought with it a full moon, a red tide, repeat clientele and some tough inshore fishing.
Having fished with me before, Joe is accustomed to catching fish under any circumstances and I was determined not to let the fact of everything being against us break tradition so we loaded up early on sardines and went to pick up Joe and Chaz, who were already showing the effects that a Costa Rica vacation has on ones system.
- With the tide on the high end and about to spend the next 6 hours going out, I figured the only water that would be unaffected by the red tide would be that flowing from the local river mouths and while this time of year that water has its own chocolate consistency, it also finds the mud loving snook nearby. And so would we.
While the conditions did play their part in the overall picture, they did not prevent us from putting two beautiful Snook in the cooler. We caught a snapper or two in the river mouths as well, but didn't really bent the rods hard until later in the afternoon when some trolling plugs would hardly let us get 2 rods in the water before the double and triple (if we managed a third rod) hookups started. We were unable to put a roosterfish in the boat today.
We're looking forward to seeing Joe again this winter so check back just before Christmas for the post.
April 29 2007
- Late April inshore with good friend Jack and some of his family that he brought to give Costa Rica a whirl started off with a bang and a cut as the jacks and large mackerel sliced and diced each bait as soon as we put it in the water. This was some great excitement for everybody especially the newbies! We literally had fish after fish chompin' at the baits but were not able to get past the jacks and mackerel to the roosters. Bait was plentiful as were the new hooks we were burning through so we spent some extra time trying to connect with a rooster near the river mouth, but eventually had to put on steel leaders and put a few of the toothy mackerel in the cooler before leaving the area to fish some rocks.
- And boy if those scissor mouths didn't follow us just about everywhere we went cutting leaders and stealing hooks like they were going out of style, but what's up with the roosters? Oops, there they are! we had a few missed bites before finally connecting with this champ. Just minutes after boating the first rooster we had a double attack our baits but only managed to get a hook into one of them and after a fight that lasted a little longer than the first, we released another rooster not quite as big as the first, but I'm sure Warren wouldn't have had it any other way.
Jack is back to fish again in late May so check back in about a month for a follow up to this post and see what we put the hook to next.
April 21 2007
- So some guys from Florida show up to do battle and let me tell you, these guys battled indeed. I'm not going to put numbers to this post as I just don't remember, but these guys not only caught big numbers of fish, they caught big numbers of types of fish. We spent one day offshore fishing some rock piles with live goggle eyes and butterfly jigs and we laid into all sorts of stuff like this nice Amberjack that worked Bob over pretty good for quite some time before he finally subdued the beast and brought it to gaff and the dinner table. A little trolling put a dorado on the table and hen back to more AJ's and snappers. I think we put 5 or 6 Amberjacks in the boat, 3 or 4 on the jigs, a couple of snappers, 2 or 3 blue jacks, the dorado and whatever else I failed to list here.
- The inshore fishing did not by any means suffer by comparison to the offshore, as we worked our way through the day with bite after bite from this and that. We even managed to put a handful of various fish in the boat. We caught snappers, roosters, jacks and grouper. Joes rooster pictured here was the largest of the trip and really displayed its bad attitude as it was screaming drag and jumping around behind the boat and putting on a show to a couple dolphin tour boats full of excited bystanders taking pictures and even videos of the whole fiasco. (if you happen to read this, I would like copies)
- Some of the trips highlights came from Bob and Joes pretty work with the jigs. Offshore they worked over snappers and amberjacks with the deadly metal, but my favorite was this broomtail that Bob yanked off of a little known rock less than a mile from shore. It was a real pleasure having these guys throw jigs around at every rock I showed them and a bigger pleasure watching them take fish after fish off of them.
- And let's get one more photo in here because you just don't see Bluefin Trevally every day and although they are such a beautiful fish, they fight like a bull and we had a great time with the ones we managed to get to the boat. We had a few other fish, I think we had some rainbow runners and maybe a needlefish or two, but don't hold me to that. The surf kept us out of the river mouths and away from looking for snook, but all in all I think a good time was had by all especially around the dinner table as these guys put fresh fish in our bellies for days to come.
March 27 2007
- We were inshore with some light tackle and the day had started out ok with a few rooster and pargo bites, but we were unable to connect with any. The radio reported about the same news coming from all directions, so we decided to load up on sardines (I'll spare the baitwell photos) and headed for the Savegre River mouth to look for dinner. It wasn't long before we had the first Snook in the boat, but missed numerous bites in the swell. All said and done, we left the river with 4 Snook in the cooler, a few jumped off, one broken line and a Penn spinning outfit that had been completely spooled, ya just never know when fishing the exact location that holds the current world record for Snook!
- Lunch time found us running toward some rooster areas, but they still didn't want to cooperate, so we worked some rocky islands with some live sardines and found the action provided by snappers, small grouper, blue jacks and some other unidentified swimmers was more than on, but we still needed a couple roosters!
We worked our way back towards Quepos to hit some submerged rocks only to have the bigger roosters have their way with us, but did manage to get a couple releases before the days end.
Check back next March after the English invade Quepos' shores again for a 3 boat 6 day no holds barred inshore fish-off!
March 19 2007
- Offshore started kinda slow for sails, so we made a few stops to fish a couple rocks throughout the morning. The Pargo action was hot and heavy with a mix of Red Snapper, Cubera and Mullet Snapper fighting over every bait we could get down. The bait of choice was live bonitos, and amidst the many pulled hooks and missed bites, we managed to land about a half dozen fish sporadically stopping and picking up a fish or two between our sailfish hunt.
- It wasn't until about 1 o'clock when the sails gave us a break, with the first coming undone after a few jumps. Baits back in the water and we were into another one right away, this one after about ten minutes did the same, but not too worry, we had yet another hungry customer chompin' at the live tuna I had reeled to within a few yards of the boat. Determined not to let this fish get away, I fed him a little extra and then dropped the hammer. About 20 minutes later we released Ricks first sail. With 3 livies left and a worn out angler we decided to hit the Pargos for one last round and this time we won with 3 baits producing yet another 3 clean releases.
Rick was feeding a party of 11, so we put 3 fish in the box and sent him home with a Cubera, a Colorado and a Mullet Snapper to get a taste of each and a 8x10 glossy of a beauty of a sailfish.
Fishing Reports New Home:
While these reports will remain here, future posts of my fishing reports have moved and can now be seen at www.kinembe2.com/blog, please check them out.