Costa Rica 2010 - Guanacaste

Guanacaste

August 2010, we checked in at the Riu Guanacaste Resort on the beautiful shores of Costa Rica, that is on the Pacific side of the country. The five star resort was a true welcome bath of luxury, after one hell of a flight. On the second day, I started fishing in front of the resort, about 5.30 am just before dawn. There was quite some surf banging the black lava beach and I places my bag and gear on an overhanging tree branch. Pretty soon my blue popper got hit by a nice jackfish which gave me a great drill and multiple screaming reel. I decided to keep the fish to give it to the native people who appeared later in the day on the beach to sell stuff. This almost went wrong because a vulture was trying to steal my fish, but I could talk him out of it! On the left side of the beach there was a river floating into the sea and just around a big lava rock, which appeared to be a great fishing spot, lay a coral white sand paradise beach. The jungle in Costa Rica starts right behind the beach and is crowded with all kinds of butterflies, monkeys, birds and big red crabs.

Resuming the fishing on this trip, it appeared the fishing was bad after rainy days, when the mud from the mountain hills floated into the sea. On clear days there was a lot of fish just under the shore. We spotted a humpback whale with her young almost every day, amazing to see them jumping out of the water. On lures like Rapala and all other stuff I had with me, there wasn’t much to catch. If you used shrimp you could get as may little fish as you would like. I missed a couple of strikes on Rapalas though and couldn’t hook any of the following fish which looked like barracuda, although the locals said there was no barracuda around in these waters. Other fishermen I met, had the same problem: following fish, no fish on! One time, at the break of dawn, I saw an enormous feeding frenzy with fish jumping high out of the water about a mile out.

Simone and I booked a charter with the local salesman at the beach. This appeared to be a great fiasco because the captain showed up late and was still drunk from the night before. We had no strikes on the trolling, and we decided to do some bottom fishing for an hour and caught some porcupinefish, snappers and a little grouper. Because I was in a desperate need of a real adrenaline rush, frustrated by the fish I missed in the days before, I had to change the plan, but not without doing something stupid first....

I was fishing in the morning when it was still dark, just trying my favourite popper again till the line broke, reason still unknown. So I saw my popper floating about 40 meters from the shore, the sunlight was just breaking through. After a short consideration, I decided to go and get it. It was the only lure that caught fish so far. I dove in and when I got it and swam back quickly, I crawled back on the beach.
I looked over my shoulder and just saw a big fin of probably a bull shark go under water, my heart beated like a drum, lesson learned!

Next morning in the dark I started the long walk along the beach to the lava rock. A big bat scared the shit out of me by flying just above my head. I wondered if it wasn’t Batman himself because of the size, but suddenly a strange sound was getting my attention. It appeared to me something was following me in the jungles edge. I started to walk on the waterline in case it would jump out of the bushes and after a couple of minutes the animal launches its attack and came towards me very fast! I couldn’t see what it was because of the dark and just before I wanted to jump in the ocean, I saw it was the dog that was keeping me company on the beach during daytime the last couple of days.....F-word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After I caught some baitfish on herring rigs baited with little pieces of shrimp, (I keep them in the disposal bucket I took from the hotel room) I started fishing. I took position on a flat rock about 10 meters from the shore. Standing on it, the water was right below my knees, the tide was going out. Adrenaline started pumping when a small bull or black tip shark cruised by, but it didn't take my bait fish unfortunately. Some baitfish were killed and eaten half way down by probably porcupine fish.

A little later, with my last baitfish on the triangle hooks, my floater started moving around. It appeared my baitfish was getting nervous, so was I by the way. When the floater was swallowed into the sea, I waited about 10 seconds for the strike. When I did all hell broke loose. Like a cruise missile launched from a submarine, a big pacific needlefish broke through the surface and got airborne, at least 2 meters high. The fight was great and gave me a buzz, the fish acted like a mini marlin and kept jumping around.

I wondered if my gear was resistant to this kind of violence, my reel screamed like fighting cats! I had him close about 5 times, but each time it fired itself off again with an enormous speed. On the 6th landing attempt, I could grab him behind the head and waded quickly to the beach. A silvery shining 1.30 meter beauty with an impressive set of teeth in green and blue colours was mine. In the days after, I caught a smaller one and some reef fish.

Great holiday, very good resort, if you end up there, start fishing with live bait right away!

Pura Vida!!!!!!!!!!!