Deep sea fishing in Costa Rica

[rolmops]

This is the first day of my pacific side Costa Rica vacation. Today was deep sea time. We trolled for half an hour and caught one barracuda and 12 bonitos. The barracuda was for bragging and eating and the bonitoes were cut up for bait. 
then we picked up the gear and moved on to deep dropping. We fished at roughly 500 feet and we were lucky enough to catch a few 10 pound groupers, some tyle fish and plenty of red snappers, in short, way more fish than we can eat. I have an understanding with a local orphanage and they gladly accepted all the fish we gave them.

This is the first time I used a Penn 30 Fathom Electric and being a 75 year old fart I happily ignored all the jokes asking me if I wanted the fish pre chewed on my plate as well and let the electric reel do all the 500 foot heavy lifting. I also was able to do more drops.

Tomorrow is an off shore day for sail fish yellow fin and mahi mahi 

Edited Wednesday at 08:33 PM by rolmops

[Bad Habit]

Sounds like something I would love to do sometime. let us know how you make out off shore.

 

[rolmops]

Day 2 

we went about 25 miles to the canyons hoping to find diving birds and dolphins, but there were no birds or dolphins or tuna, after four hours of searching we went back closer inshore and did some tile fishing at 700 feet down. We got 3 groupers and 4 tile fish. Then the wind picked up and things changed.

while bringing up the jig, a large yellow fin hit my jig and supplied entertainment and dinner. Right after that while lowering the jig a very big mahi mahi hit the jig and jumped about three foot high into the boat and then jumped out again while spitting the jig out. We ,including the mahi mahi, were dumbfounded. The fish just stayed next to the boat staring at us and we stared back. Then it took off. 
afterwards we went back to the little beach where the boat is docked.

Tomorrow I will out for 8 hours to try and catch some rooster fish. 

Edited Friday at 01:05 AM by rolmops

[rolmops]

Day three and four.

I decided that day three was going to be a near shore experiment day, so we went to a small island and fished around it hoping for rooster fish. It turned out that the rooster fish were roosting somewhere else and after half an hour we went trolling for bonitos, caught a dozen and trolling at a higher speed (about 8 mph) we continued to some rock formations near the big drop off and started jigging and bait deep dropping 500 to 700 feet down. From there it was fish after fish. One drop brought up 4 groupers Another drop was 2 15 pound red snappers. The Penn Electric Fathom was a blessing because I would not have been able to bring up all that fish from that depth. My friend/guide was flabbergasted. Then instead of doing his usual 1000 yard drift, I told him to just keep going over a mud flat and we caught non stop groupers, tilefish and big red snappers. I saw that my friend was exhausted, so I taught him how to use the electric reel and he became an instant convert. We trolled for mahi-mahi and tuna on the way back home. But in spite of all effort, we did not get any. 
I have problems adding pictures, but I probably later today I will post some.

[rolmops]

On day 4, we were delayed by heavy rains and thunderstorms so we left late. My daughter and 5 year old grandson accompanied me, so dependent on his capability for  being on a small boat in big waves and need for instant gratification we made plans. I will let the pictures do the talking.