Quepos, Costa Rica Fishing Report

Here's a quick pick of me, the mate and the 32 foot Ocean Master named 'Stress Reeliever' we fish & love!

Fishing Reports:

August 25 2010

Had a super exciting day offshore today where we caught an enourmous amount of fish. We started the day off fishing on the bottom and scored over 10 Amberjacks and a couple of Snappers. By about 11 everybody had had enough reeling so we went out in search of something top side. We caught a Dorado as we were leaving the Furuno banks and then about 5 miles off the Furuno banks, we came across a floating tree. These floating "reefs" are going to be the theme for the next couple of months. I actually just imported an expensive pair of stabilized binoculars to help us find these and when you do the results are great! We ended up pulling 5 nice wahoos out from under this tree and another 10ish Dorados! After calling the position out to the other captains in the area, we moved off the stick and had a double sailfish bite, but they were just playing with the teasers. An awesome day where we got close to 30 fish in the boat of quite a few different species!

August 15

We went out for a couple of hours today on the bottom, and had pretty good results. We usually let most of our fish go, but today is mother's day here in Costa Rica and the mates wanted some fish to cook up for mom! We probably caught about twice as many amberjacks, and spent about 2.5 hours fishing. We went back in early, but I think if we had stayed out all day we would have gotten a billfish in the afternoon. Another great day fishing in Quepos, Costa Rica!

August 6, 2010

Sailfish, Amberjacks and Snapers are the story of August so far. Usually in August there aren't that many sailfish around, as our season in November through May. I can only imagine how good the season will be this year having so many billfish in the off season! In addition to the unusually great billfishing, the bottom has been really hot! It has made trips super interesting because we have been bottom fishing in the mornings while we collect live bait, and then have been trolling in the afternoons for billfish. It has been pretty successful, and we have been averaging at least a sailfish per day, with tons and tons of other nice fish while we fish on the bottom.We had had many days of over 20 nice fish to the boat! We have also been seeing tons and tons of little Dorado coming through. That should mean by mid October, we will start having the bulls come in and everybody knows how great Dorado season is here! We've got the spinning reels all oiled up waiting for Dorado, and we are looking for people who like to hook one and then see how many we can have on at the same time. Last year, we had five on multiple times so this year we need to have a 6 at once! It's going to be an awesome winter here, I can't wait!

 

 

August 1, 2010

 

Been great fishing so far. The bottom fishing has been really good, and there have been lots of Sails, Tuna and Dorado out. We have been spending the first half of our days hitting the bottom and racking up on reel time. There are a couple of spots that no matter what you drop down, you are hooked up to something. Lots of Amberjacks, quite a few Cuberas, and quite a few big red Snappers as well. We have been averaging 15-20 fish to the boat in the morning. In the afternoons, we have been filling up the tuna tubes with live bait and sail hunting. We are hooking at least one per trip, and there have been some Dorado out as well. We had a trip on the 2nd where instead of doing the bottom we went out looking for tuna and ended up with 20 YF in the 25-40 pound range. We ended that day with a sailfish as well. Not as many Marlin out as I thought, but plenty of everything else. Much better than the typical August, and I expect September to be good as well. Here's some pictures, I don't have a camera right now, it's "in the mail" and apparently on a slow boat, so if you have been fishing with me, I NEED PICTURES!! :)

July 8, 2010

This report is dedicated to all the PETA members out there! Here is a before and after 6 year old Joel Michael's Wahoo's. It was both him and his dad's first time in the Pacific and it was an awesome trip. I always love fishing with kids, something about how excited they get after the catch. We went out for a half day today and ended up with a pair of Wahoo's, pair of Yellow Fin Tuna's, and some bonita. Not bad for about 3.5 hours of fishing.

June 22, 2010

Sorry for the lack of reports. I pulled my boat out of the water to do some quick repairs and keep finding things I want to do. We've got her all polished up inside and out, new bottom paint, fixed some breaks in the tower, and freshened up the motor. I probably have about a week left, and man I miss the water! Since I have run over with the b.o.a.t. updates (Bring Out Another Thousand), I have been sending trips to different friends and the fishing has been pretty good. Lots of Marlin out, including the one caught above. Out on the 26 banks, there have been quite a few Wahoo. There have also been schools of Yellow fin that run through the area and about 3-4 times a week they have been coming across big schools. On some of the trips I sent out this week, they had a day this last week with 4 sails, and they also had a double Marlin day. Inshore has been slow, but should come back soon. I think it would be better if I had been out there, as I really enjoy hunting for Roosters! If you went out in the last couple of weeks with a boat from Quepos, from me or otherwise, email me your pictures and I'll stick em up here. Hopefully, I'll get this boat back in the water and I can get the camera going again! Overall fishing offshore has been good though, so if you're coming in on vacation and want to reel in something big for dinner, now's the time!

May 25, 2010

Ok, I wish I had some pictures, but I've been sick for the last two weeks and I have had a good friend Jerry driving the boat. May has been full of Marlin. We have had a Marlin behind the boat each trip for the last 4 trips. Two came hungry and got hooked, and the one today and the other one, just came up to show us they were there. The best was a 400 pound Blue and took 3 hours and 10 minutes to get it to the boat. There have been quite a few on the sonar as well. Apart from the Marlin today, we got quite a few YellowFin and Dorado today. Today was the first day we didn't hook any sails this week, but we were after "eating fish". I'm going to go after some pictures, I'll see if Jerry or the customers took any and I'll get them up here as soon as possible. Another great day of fishing in Quepos Costa Rica!

May 10, 2010

Wow, the fishing is Super Hot right now. We went out today for 1 hour of fishing and we had a big Sailfish and a monster Dorado. We had 55 minutes of fish fighting and 5 minutes of trolling. Everytime the line touched the water, there were fish behind it. We also found this awesome crate floating around in the water at 20 miles and below it there was a huge school of bait. And like every good fisherman knows, where there is bait, there are gamefish! It's funny, usually the fishing is the hottest in February and March, but it looks like this year, May-August are going to be full of Sails, Yellow Fin, and Dorado. Today is the only day so far this month were we haven't seen the a big Yellow Fin Tuna School as well. I thnk I could have put some YF Tuna numbers up today if we had been out more than an hour. May has been great so far, we have had only about 2-3 hours of daylight rain all this week. I think we'll keep seeing high numbers and clear days until August. Anyway, here are the pictures, and hopefully I'll post some more soon!

May 6, 2010

Had a half day inshore today, and it was a blast. It's interesting, it has started raining in the mountains and it rains here everynight now, and it has changed the nature of our inshore fishing. We used to go to river mouths and throw up in there looking for some Roosters and if we didn't hook up, we would just move. I just bought a brand new sonar, my dream machine, a Furuno 585 with the biggest transducer they make. I thought today I would try using the sonar to get the Roosterfish instead of just hitting the normal holes and hoping for the best. So today, we went out looking for big fish with the sonar. It took a while to find what we were looking for, but man when we got on the fish, we hooked a monster. I was following a rock ledge trying to find what depth these massive sea creatures were hiding at, and I found a thermocline at around 40 feet that was showing lots of fish. For those of you not familiar with new generation fish finders, they not only tell you where the fish are, but measure the fish and give you the size. So if I am seeing lots of 4-6 inch fish I know they aren't the ones I am after. Also, they are super sensitive to temperature breaks (themoclines), and everytime there is a water temperature change, you get some fuzz at that depth. Well this particular thermocline was showing 20-30 inch fish outside a ball of bait (I think they were bonitas). That's about right for a monster Rooster. So knowing where they are at is half the battle, and we got right after them setting up the downrigger and the biggest lookdown bait I could find. Bam, monster Rooster. I'm talking full hour and change fighting him. After an exhausted but elated customer got the fish up and had the photo sesson, the hunt was back on. I'm still learning how to use the fish finder, but one thing I did figure out was the target lock. You can pick a big concentration of fish and mark them on the sonar. The sonar then sends the point to the GPS and you get a mark on your map. Transfer that to the autopilot and after you release the fish, the boat turns and drives right back over the group. Works great fishing inshore with structure because the fish don't move a whole lot. And with long fights, it was hard to keep track of where the fish were at before, but now all we had trouble with was getting the rods set up before the boat put us on target again. Well we let the Rooster go, and hit go on the fishfinder and we were hooked up within 2 minutes of fishing. Well anyway, that's the story of how the day went, too bad it wasn't a full day, or we would have caught an insane amount of fish. I expect my inshore trips to be filled more with big fish and maybe not the same number, but more fighting time. We'll see, it was the first day out inshore with the new equipment and I'd consider it a success. I'll keep you guys updated on how this goes down. Offshore the bite has been great and there are lots of Sails, Dorado, and Tuna going around. Definitely not the normal May in Costa Rica. We have been getting no waves, little rain during the day, sun and lots of fish. I'm looking forward to a great June, July and August. The bottom two pictures are from earlier this week offshore, and as always, are of different fish.

April 27, 2010

Great day fishing inshore today! I love when I get to take the younger anglers out! We went out inshore today and got some Roosterfish, a really large Jack and a really nice Spanish Mackeral. We also had about 20 other bites, but didn't get those all the way into the boat. When the tide was low in the afternoon, we were getting a hit every 10 minutes, it was really exciting! The most fun was watching our younger angler rell in the Roosterfish above. He was very wore out, but acomplished something which gives trouble to many more experienced anglers! Offshore has been great as well, with lots of sails and Marlin out. Last trip out, although we didn't get them all to the boat, we hooked 6 sails and a Marlin. Lots of billfish acrobatics. I kinda expected this year to get more sails later in the season, and I am hoping the sails come out all summer. Either way, there will be an awesome Marlin bite, so anybody wanting to hook into the big one, come visit me this June-August!

Recommend us to the world!

We are trying to get some positive feedback in Trip Advisor! If you had a good time with us and would like to recommend us to the world for all to enjoy, go to TripAdvisor.com. Don't forget to put our website address and pictures from your trip! Thanks!!!

April 11,

Sorry this took so long to post, but I have had a big problem trying to get Costa Rican government run internet to mesh with video files and You Tube. But this was an aweomse day of fishing. We had heard of Tuna in the area, so we went way out and we found this huge school of Dolphins and Tuna and had it all to ourselves! At first, as you can see in the first video, the school was really moving as the Dolphins were chasing huge schools of small Sardines. It was neat because the Sardines were only 2 inches long at most and it just looked like a dark black cloud moving through the water. at high speeds. Finally the Dolphins got them in a big dark ball and that's when we started pulling out the Tuna. We hooked up with 7 in all and they were all pretty nice sized ones, no footballs! We finally left there in search of a sailfish and ended up hooking one (but it escaped before we got it all the in) and a 300 pound Manta before going towards the house. It was the first Manta I have ever hooked, and the way it hit the bait and fought I was sure it was a Marlin. He pulled out part of his body when he took the bait that looked like a giant Dorsal Fin and then started ripping away at line. I had to turn the boat and chase him just to keep from getting spooled! Well, anyway, I'm sure people will ask why i put videos of Dolphins up on the site. Well guys, here's your chance to sell the Costa Rica trip to your wives! All women love Dolphins! And the whales is just icing on the cake! Below are two of the Tuna, and some sails from this week. Great day fishing, I'll keep those Quepos Fishing Reports coming!

 

April 7, 2010

We've been off the last week putting in a new sonar, and steering system, so it was nice to get back out on the water. We had a pretty good day today, releasing 5 Roosterfish, a monster Barracuda and a Big Eye Jack. We hooked up about 100 times but today the Roosters were tricky! Luckily there were so many shots we got quite a few to the boat. We had a great day cruising around the tropical islands right near the beach. I think the customers had more fun today seeing the exotic scenery than hooking in to the fish! There are a couple of islands we fish on that have the caves near the water, and blow holes that violently shoot water up in the air as you pass by. It makes for some awesome scenery and I am truly blessed to call this my office! Another great day fishing in beautiful and sunny Costa Rica!

March 27, 2010

Had a great day fishing offshore. The fishing was really far out, but well worth the trip. Today we released 6 Sailfish and a Dorado. The problem with today is I forgot my camera! So the pictures are from yesterday when we hooked 4 out of 5 sailfish that got behind the boat, and also got a really nice Dorado. The highlight of the two days was when we had a younger girl, about 13, reel in her first sailfish. And once again, with her dad and Rudy coaching her, she got it all the way into the boat by herself, just like a seasoned veteran! The first picture is of her, her proud father and Rudy! Another couple of great days on the water, looking forward to April and May. Here's some pictures from beautiful and sunny Quepos Costa Rica!

March 19 2010

Been sick for the last week, but it was nice getting back out on the water today. We hosted a bachelor fishing party today, and man were the fish biting! Had a great day inshore, probably hooked about 20 Roosterfish, and we released 8 Roosterfish, 1 Snapper, and a Snook. I can't wait to get back offshore so i can put some more sailfish photos up here for you guys. I have been talking to some of he other boat captains, and they say there are lots of sails to be caught. Well, here's a picture of one of the Roosterfish. Sorry i'm still groggy from the antibotics so i didn't come down to shoot more pictures. But more to come soon!

March 10 2010

Had a great day out today! We spent all morning fighting a truly big Marlin. What a monster hookup. We went out 40 miles today, and got straight to the bait hunting. Not a moment after we had the lines all full lively small bonitas, did Rudy see one of our newly placed baits flying through the air. He lowered the drag on the pole waiting for the bite, and then I hear the reel start whirring like a small electric motor. He raised the break up and hooked the fish and we saw a huge splash behind the boat as the fish jumped out of the water. Then about half a second later the fish jumped again next to the boat and then anohter half a second later and the fish jumped 100 yards IN FRONT of the boat. He was moving so fast that he was still dragging off line towards the back of the boat as he was running forward. I got the boat in gear and throttled up and the fight was on! We chased him down only after he pulled off about 600 yards of line. The customers took turns fighting him all morning, until everyone finally wore out, and then they handed if off to Rudy. Rudy, like a kid in a candy store, starts reeling and pulling and about 20 minutes later we have the fish within 15 feet of the boat. It is huge, at least 12 feet long, and was an awesome sight. We made it all the way to the shock leader until the fish went crazy and the leader just couldn't take any more and gave out. I have to admit, this is the first time I've had a leader break since I started using Yo Zuri Floro Carbon. I'd say the fish jumped about 25 times though, so overall the leader did ok. Not the happiest ending, but we got through all the fight. This week has been amazing for fishing. The last two weeks of February were a bit slow (really strange for this time of the year), so we were super excited the fish started biting again! We hooked up with 5 sailfish yesterday, 4 monster big tunas the day before. We had an inshore day this week with 35 fish and one with 25 fish. It's been really great fishing and I'm looking forward to a super busy April through May. Well, here's some pictures, sorry, no Marlin pictures, I was only 10 feet from getting him to the boat so I didn't think to take pictures. Check out the big tuna though. Great times here on the water in Quepos!

February 2010

What a great time we had overall.
For me, I had waited/planned/envisioned for years to be able to see my son bring in
his first BILLFISH!!! It was a dream fulfilled!!! -David

Ok, first I have to apologize, we have been 100% booked and I haven't had the energy to tap away at the keyboard after fishing/fueling/cleaning. So here is a recap of the last part of February. February was an awesome month, and with it came a lot of great times! A few stick out. One was this snook that we caught that might have been a world record if I had it weighed. I promise, the only photoshop used on the fish was to shrink it down for the web. That thing was huge! At the dock after the trip, all the mates were holding it up to have their picture taken with it, and I can't wait to see the mount! Another fun story was 12 year David who reeled in this sailfish all by himself. He was super attentive and listened to everything Rudy said. The sailfish didn't come in easy either, but was jumping and doing everything it could to spit the hook or pop the leader. But thanks to a little bit of Yo-Zuri Floro leader (pink of course), and a great listener on the reel, we won the battle and the picture got taken! Offshore has been great with lots of double sails, usually one of the spinning rod per trip! Inshore has been especially insane as well, with between 15-35 fish a day. Inshore we averaged 4-8 Snook and 5-10 Roosters and at least one Dog Faced Snapper per day. And as you can see from the photos, the fish here are HUGE!

 

February 11

Lots of sails out today! I had a young couple out today and we really wore them out today with sails. On a side note, we have gotten at least one double sailfish hookup and at least one spinning reel sailfish hookup per trip now for the last 7 trips! Well, instead of me telling the story, I'll just show you some pictures and let you read the email I recieved after the trip!

" Cant thank you enough for the best fishing trip we have ever been on!!!!!!!!! I am going to email you all of our pics from the trip and will be happy to recommend you to anyone I hear that is headed that way. We are seriously looking into moving down there, thanks again man.! "

Best Regards,
Capt. Ryan

February 5

Great day out, sailfish were everywhere! I lost count but we got either 6 or 7 to the boat, with literally hundreds of sails jumping around and swimming by the boat. And these weren't baby sails, they were monsters! The best was a double with one on the spinning. There is nothing more fun and challenging than reeling in a 125 pound billfish on a spinning reel spooled with 30 pound Mono! So we hit the first sail, he was wanting to eat the teaser. After a little bait and switch, we had the spinning reel screaming and the fight was on! As the sail was getting close, we saw that it was bringing up another one so we hooked that one too on the Tigra 30. It was some great fishing! Here's some awesome pictures! And yes they are enormous, and the pictures are of different fish!

February 3

Great day fishing. I fished with these guys yesterday & today and the sails were thick. We hooked 6 sails yesterday and 3 Dorado. Some of those were on small spinning reels as well, and I think overall we probably spent more time reeling than trolling. As a result of that some of the guys were a bit worn out today when we started out early! So about 12 O'clock today, we had already boated 3 sails and 3 nice Dorado, and the guys decided they couldn't handle anymore action! On a side note, it has been 4 days since a sail has come behind the boat and not gotten hooked. Many times you hear people say we went 2 for 7 on sails. Not on the Sterss Reeliever. Every fish gets a hook, and then the battle is between the customer and the fish. Even if we are reeling in another fish, fish beware ... as happened today ... So we had hooked this sail on the spinning and once again it was almost to the boat. Rudy was holding the leader on the sail and a Dorado just leisurely swims past. Customers are shooting photos and I hear, " Hey look at that Dorado". I couldn't let a fish come that close to the boat and get away!!! So without a word to Rudy, who is trying to get ahold of the sailfish, I throw out a bait on the 30, run up the tower and throw the boat in gear. Then I fly down the ladder and hook the fish while the boat is on Autopilot (figuratively, not literaly) and then run back up the tower and take it out of gear! Poor Rudy was halfway in the water with the sail and was yelling, "Who's driving the boat!" and "What the heck are you doing?" but he figured it out when I got the hook!!! Afterwards we had a good laugh though and he said I earned my third stripe(whatever that means)! And then we took the pictures of the sail while the Dordo fight was on! Today was all reeling and no breaks! Another great day out in the beautiful and warm Quepos Costa Rica Blue Waters!

Where Did Rudy Come From?

I get alot of questions about where I got Rudy and how he knows so much about fish. So I thought I would let the secret out of the bag and show you guys the photos of where I discovered him! Apparently, he drifted out to sea at a young age and was raised by sailfish! Neat story. It may be true, but that's not really where these pictures came from. Actually this was a tired sailfish after a battle with our spinning rod. It wasn't sure if it could go on with life, and Rudy, loving fish and never having hurt a sailfish in his life, jumped out to give the fish swimming lessons and whisper in its ear! :) I would have backed the boat up to the fish, but that just wasn't fast enough for Rudy! Ahh, I guess you can't hate him for his enthusiam! I'm planning on going back sometime mid-February to check on him and see how old Rudy is making out!

End of January

January ended with a bang, or should I say splash! We have been seeing more and more sails, and we are typically getting one for everybody on board! I guess a day that stood out in particular was the 31st. We had two guys on the boat, Andy and Roger, and neither had caught a Pacific Sailfish before. Well as you can see from the photo above, not only did they catch a sailfish, but we got them both one at the same time! Interesting story... Sailfish came to the teaser and we teased him up to the boat and Rudy threw out the spinning reel as a pitch bait and perfectly set the hook. So we are hooked up with the spinning reel, and Roger is doing a great job keeping the line tight and the fish is almost in the boat. That's quite a task on a spinning rod and I imagine he was a little bit tired. Right then, we see there is another Sail coming up out of the water about 30 feet behind the boat. Next thing I know, Rudy starts yelling to put the boat back in gear and he casts out a ballyhoo connected to the Tiagra 30! For you not familiar with reel types, a Tiagra is a big heavy gold trolling reel that wasn't made for casting! Well, with his usual pinpoint accuracy he hits the second sail on the head and as soon as the boat was up to speed, Rudy got the circle hook perfectly placed in the mouth! But, since the spinning reel was still hooked up during the second hookup, poor Roger had to start all over reeling in his sailfish! Needless to say, the one on the Tiagra came in much quicker! But hey, we got the double! I think between the sails and the Dordo, we ended up with about 5-6 six fish to the boat that day. They had so much fun that on the ride home all they were talking about was how they were coming back next year! Here's some photos from that trip and some others in the last week af January!

January 24

Wow, January is super busy and we barely get a break to write these! But the emails have been coming in demanding a report with pictures, so here it is! Today I had a half day offshore, and man was it busy! We got 4 fish in 4 hours including the first photo above. It was a blast, and customers and me had a great time! January has been good to us. We are still getting lots and lots of sails behind the boat each trip and hooking quite a few as well. Dorado have been pretty easy to find as well, just by watching the birds and debris. I will never understand why a 8 ounce bird dives at a 35 pound Dorado, but I'm sure glad they do! I think we have brought home at least one Dorado each trip so far this month, with lots of doubles and giants! Sails are a blast, I have been waiting all year for the sails to come in and man is this fun fishing! Anyway, here are some pictures we took since our last post, and I promise I'll do my best to update this more often!

January 12 - 16

Sails are really starting to pick up. We are seeing lots and lots of sails and hooking quite a few as well. We are also getting into some Dorado offshore. Inshore has been lots of fun as well, with us seeing quite a few more Red Snappers than usual. Live bait just came back for our inshore trips (there is a two week transition period, now over, in January where there is no bait) so I expect to once again start getting at least 10 Roosterfish a trip. Also, the blue water is creeping closer to shore and soon I should have some nice Snook photos up as well! Also check out the cool shot I got of an unhooked sailfish looking up to at my boat. I guess she just makes that right sound that brings up the fish!!! Here's some recent pictures!

January 2

Good day offshore today. We got 3 Sailfish, a Dorado, and 5 YellowFin Tunas. Pretty exciting day to say the least. We also had a bunch of bites so all day was nonstop action. We also got a chance to break out our spinning reels today, which made for some awesome fish fights! I got some awesome video of Rudy grabbing one of the bills I ran out of memory card, but the results are in the photos:

December 24

Went inshore today and boy were the fish out. The day started out slow with only a barracuda, jack and a Roosterfish before 11. Good for some guys, but we like action. So we packed up and went to one of our "secret spots"! There is a place near a river mouth here, where with the right moon and right tide, there is a pool full of RoosterFish. Not small ones either, but big one after big one! So, we went out there and for the rest of the day reeled in Roosterfish after Roosterfish. I think we finished with 13 nice Roosterfish. We would have gotten more, but we only had one customer reeling so it was an action packed and aweomse day. Here's some pictures! Also, just a quick update on the rest of the month we've been having. I don't get to write these after every trip because I am the captain, boat administrator, and website guy, so here is the recap... Offshore the Dorado have been crazy with lots of days in the double digits. We are getting almost a sailfish per trip, and by the end of the month we should be in 3-4 sails per trip. Expect more exciting fishing January and February where we often get double digit sails per day. If you are wanting to book in January or February, you have to act fast as we are already 90 percent full!

December 22

Great day fishing offshore today. We got 12 nice Dorado in the boat today and had many more bites and nibbles. Almost every hook up was a double also, as we had Rudy standing on the transom of the boat after every hook up casting on the Dorado's friends! I think he has a laser sight on the reel, he hit three or four of the Dorado directly in the head with bait at 20-40 yards, so they weren't even biting it out of hunger but anger! It is also a ton of fun hitting the Dorado on the smaller saltwater spinning rod that Rudy uses. There is nothing better to an angler than a huge fish on a small reel! Big Big battles! Here's what the customer wrote me after the trip:

Capt. John,

Thank you so much for a great day of fishing. That having been my wife's first time deep sea fishing it could not have gone any better. The fact that she was too tired to reel in any more fish after the first two worked out great for me, although my arms were a little sore after as well. It couldn't have been easier to walk onto your boat from the dock without breaking stride and to be fishing within the hour.
It was a blast fishing with you and Rudy, especially seeing Rudy get just as excited about a bite as I was. We would happy to recommend you to anyone visiting the area.
Great fishing, good food, a comfortable ride, and fantastic day on the water. Thanks again and we'll be calling as soon as we book our next trip.
Sincerely, Tommy and Allison

Rudy, the mate, has been a super addition to the team here, he misses almost no fish, can hit a fish with bait at 50 yards with a spinning reel, and has mad bait net casting skills. While other boats are using bait reels to pull out one bait at a time while their clients are waiting (usually hoping for 15), we net 50 in two throws and head out to get some fish. That extra 30 minutes almost always gets us another big fish! With bait to spare, we only use very fresh lively baits and use the rest for chum!

December 19

Super exciting inshore trip today! We ended up with 20 RoosterFish and 3 Jacks! All the pictures above are different fish! With the rain finally subsiding here, and the dry season beginning, we are getting the nice blue water right up to Quepos! We just reeled in fish after fish. We even had to take a 30 minute break at 1pm to let everybody recover. The best was the last though. It was 4 in the afternoon, so we went into one more fish mode. Then we hooked the biggest meanest toughest fish of the day. The reel went off and we had no idea what it was but the fight was on! After a full 35 minutes we finally pulled up this medium sized Jack! We all had a little laugh because we were thinking something bigger and better, but figured that we might as well get a picture of it after all that fight. So we pull it in the boat, and thinking the fish is ready to have his picture taken, Kyle holds the fish up while his girlfriend starts shooting the picture. Right at that very moment, the fish rears his head back and head butts Kyle right in the chin! After we were sure he was alright, we all had a serious laugh. Talk about a fish who doesn't like to lose a fight! The best part is she shot the picture right after the headbutt so below you can find the action shot! You can see he is about to say "family" but don't worry, the fish pops him again before he can finish!

December 9-18

Fishing has been great, but I've been too busy to post! I'm trying to do catch up now. Offshore we have been getting lots of Dorado, with doubles and triples being very common and ten per trip not uncommon. Above is a picture of four at a time! We have also been getting at least 3 Yellow Fin Tunas per trip, often more. Also, the sails are finally here. We are getting quite a few sail bites per day. It is so exciting seeing the sails dance around after a hookup. Today (18th), we actually teased the sailfish all the way up until it touched the boat and then Harrold (Rudy is on Christmas break until the 20th) put the bait in its mouth from the pitch pole and then the fight was on! It was quite an exciting day! Here's some pictures. My camera was out of batteries for the last couple of trips, but these are some of the pictures I got before it shut off!

December 4-7

Fishing is definitely heating up as we are finally getting into our prime fishing season! We have been averaging 7+ Dorado and usually a sail each trip offshore! Inshore has been great too, with us getting three roosterfish and a small grouper in just a half day! Look at this Rooster, it is enormous! As we get closer to January, we will start seeing more and more sails until we finally get into the 10+ sails a day by mid-January! Here are some pictures from today and the last couple of days.

December 1

Sorry, it's been a while. We've been swamped and I don't have the energy to write these things! Today we went out and did pretty good. We decided to go with light tackle today, so we broke in the new Spinning reels we just bought. We got 11 Dorado in the boat today, and we got one sail but he escaped! It was a ton of fun. We would find the Dorado trolling around with Ballyhoo, then bring them close to the boat and hit them with the live bait on the spinning reel. On splinning reels it takes a very long time to get them to the boat, but it is enormously fun. Here are the pictures. On bottom I have a triple hookup, all on the spinning reels! Note that there are three Dorado in the boat and three on the lines! On the top are two good Dorado that were a huge battle on the spinning. The second half of November was great. We hit a ton of Roosterfish, and ton of Dorado and some pretty good Barracudas and Snappers! Been a lot of fun!

November 16

Had a really good offshore day today. Our customers wanted to catch meat to bring home, so we went out looking for a nice blue water trash line. We quickly found a good current and then just started pulling out the fish. We had a couple double hook ups, a couple triple hook ups, and then finaly a 5 hook up. Since there were only two customers, they would just reel until the fish was near the boat and then the mate would hand them another reel and they would go again. We had Rudy casting out near the fish that were coming in when there was only one fish on and that alost guaranteed an additional hook up everytime. At the end of the day, we hit this huge bull Dorado and even though we got him on a Tiagra 50, it still took 51 minutes with an experienced angler to get him on board! Ended up being a great day. Since we fished two more days with the same guys, we also got them some more Dorado, Yellow fin Tuna, Spanish mackeral, Makeral Tuna, and Wahoo. They got a great taste of all the fish we offer here in Costa Rica! Take note that all the fish in the picutres are different fish and if there are five fish in the picture or three, they were all caught at the same time!

November 10

I think the picture accurately describes our trip. The gentleman on the left said it was his lifelong dream to catch a big sail, and it was his birthday so we got him hooked up! The sails were almost the same size, but the one on the left was turned for the photo. A pair of really nice sails! We are so excited that the sailfish have finally come back into season. From now till March we will be loading up on there every trip! Also, you know it was a good trip when everybody went home with some Dorado to cook. Great day fishing out of beautiful Quepos Costa Rica!

November 11

Had two inshore days, one full and one half day. Overall we caught 18 Roosterfish, and a really nice Mackeral. Many of the Roosterfish were a bit smaller but there were some good ones in the group as well. Here's some Roosterfish pictures and a nice Spanish Mackeral. There is no better place in the world to catch a Roosterfish than here in beautiful Quepos Costa Rica!

November 3

Finally, November is here and the fish are biting! We had scheduled a Full Day Inshore trip today, but at 10:30 we had worn out the customer. We got a really nice barracuda and a big snapper. The snapper fight took around 30 minutes and was the fish that sealed the deal! We were trolling out in the "Bajos de Foro" pretty close to the dock and first we hit the big barracuda. This is actually one of the larger barracudas as Pacific barracudas are smaller than those found in Florida. After a pretty decent fight, we got it in the boat and we set off for another fish. This guy was staying with a chef from the states, so he wanted something really big and good to eat. We went ahead and picked up and moved over to where we know there are some big snapper caves. Within a couple of sweeps of the area, we nailed a big one and the line was running. Unfortunately, like snappers usually do, the snapper went straight down into a cave and the line broke off. Never the type to give up, we went back around and dropped down on top of the caves again and we got another nice hit. This time we were able to use the boat to pull the snapper into deeper water and the fight was on! 30 minutes later, this snapper was finally in the boat! Another happy customer fishing here in Quepos Costa Rica aboard the Stress Reeliever!

September 30

September and October are our two rainiest months of the year. They are also probably the hardest when it comes to fishing. That being said, we had a pretty good day this morning. We went out for a half day inshore, and we got a RoosterFish within 30 seconds. We followed that up with two barracudas, a blue Jack, and about 5-6 other really good bites. It ended up being a really good morning. A lot of action. One time we even had a triple hookup. We had Rudy throwing a popper in the front of the boat, and he hit a barracuda. He runs to the back of the boat to hand the rod off to Bill (the client). Since we were using two rods of live bait in the back of the boat, he reels them all the way in so the lines don't get tangled during the barracuda fight. But he leaves the fish in the water so they don't die. So we are sitting there watching Bill reel in the fish and bam bam, two big red snappers take the baits which are right there next to the boat. Rudy grabs both rods and hands one up to me, but the fish had both went directly under the boat and as much as we tried, we couldn't get them back out before the lines snapped. But talk about exciting. We did get the barracuda though!

"Please accept this belated note of appreciation from me for the two great inshore fishing trips I recently took on your boat. My first hook-up with a rooster fish fulfilled a lifelong dream to catch this sporty fighter of a fish. Your mate and his brother are well mannered experienced professionals. My two brothers and I are planning a trip to Quepos in March 2010 and I plan on taking them on a few inshore trips on your boat. Thank you for a great time."

I also went offshore for a couple of days on the 14th and 16 and inshore again on the 15th. Those days went pretty good, the inshore was definitely better than the offshore. Even though sails are out of season until November, we did get to see three good sails in the spread, but no bites.The pictures below are also from those offshore trip. The fish on the top are a Roosterfish (he has got his "Rooster" fins laying down), and a blue Jack (a good eating cousin of the AmberJack). The lower pictures are of a Dorado (AKA Mahi Mahi/Dolphin) and a pretty nice AmberJack! Just another day proving there is no where in the world with better fishing than Quepos Costa Rica!

August 17 & 19

Ok, I am feeling a bit lazy so i'm going to do two at the same time. We had two inshore days on both of these days and they were both really exciting! Both trips we brought 35 live baits and both trips not a single one survived the day! We seriously had a ton of bites and catches. On the 19th we didn't even have time to make lunch because Rudy was so busy rigging baits and dealing with "Fish On" moments! Both days saw Roosterfish (Everybody on the boat got their own Roosterfish on the 19th), one double Roosterfish hookup, a bunch of Jacks which put up a great fight too, both trips had some Spanish Mackeral, we had some Pompano (a great fish to fight), and a good deal of Red Snapper as well. Some of the Roosterfish were bigger than the mounted Roosterfish I see on the walls of the tour offices here in town! We have also had the best weather as it has been overcast and it has made for cooler days on the Ocean. Add that with a nice Pacific breeze and fishing has been awesome! On the 19th, we even had a fish who hit super hard it took all the line off our rod in a matter of seconds. And the rod was FULL of brand new line! For some reason, we are hitting large offshore fish on our inshore tackle right here within a mile of Quepos. It happened the other day with the 4 foot Wahoo, and it happened again on the 19th. No idea what we hit, but we needed a big offshore reel to catch it! We also got to come really close Humpback Whales (within 5 feet of the boat). That was cool because they were so much bigger than the boat. They just sat there and looked at us and blew water up in the air! Anyway, here's some fishing pictures from Quepos Costa Rica!

Quepos & Manuel Anotnio Hotels

Let us help you find the best deal on a nice hotel here on the water. We have something for everyone, include budget but clean hotels, all the the way to the Mariposa sitting up on the cliff overlooking the ocean. We can do luxury cliff top house rentals as well, just let us know! For more pictures go to our Hotel page!

Costa Rica Travel

Want to try the most exotic fishing trip of your life, but worried about where to go?   Let us take care of you!  We can handle all the details, and you can just enjoy the fishing.  From hotels to transport, we find you the best places and the best deals.  I work here full time searching for the nicest hotels and the lowest prices.  Also, Costa Rica is the safest country in Latin America, and with us guiding your vacation, you can experience the very best parts of this amazing country.  Imagine this dream vacation: We take you out to the best fishing spots with our awesome Ocean Master 32 foot boat, and put you in the best hotels.  When you have caught the biggest and most fish of your life, we can set you up to go and see active volcanos, a huge hot water park, a cloud forest, the most awesome ATV rides on earth, and ziplines through the mountains!  It's everything you have always wanted to do but haven't!   We can take care of all the details so you can just a have a great trip.  I have been to every place I reccommend and I only send my customers to the best locations.  After my first trip here, I moved here, so I'm sending you to all the same spots that made me fall in love with this country. 

Fish We Catch