Many destinations have at various times laid claim to being the ‘billfish capital of the world,’ but few have earned it. One such destination is Costa Rica, more specifically its Pacific coastline. Editor Grant Dixon recently spent 10 days on the water in Central America and shares his thoughts and experiences concerning one of the world’s angling hot spots…

Prior to leaving on this readers’ trip, run in conjunction with Tony and Bea Orton from Offshore Adventures, I was astounded to learn about the numbers of billfish – sailfish in particular – reportedly being caught in these waters. I read that it was not uncommon during a ‘hot’ bite to have 50 shots a day.

There is a prestigious tournament held out of Los Suenos Marina – our base for this trip – called the Signature Triple Crown. It is fished over three legs, each comprising three days fishing in the months of January, February and March.

This year saw an average of 39 boats fishing a total of nine days, releasing an incredible 5078 billfish – mosty sailfish – for the tournament. At first I thought it was a typo!

The series-winning team, fishing aboard the 15.5m Agitator, caught 246 sailfish over nine days, an average of just over 27 sailfish per day. Wow!

This was at the peak of the sailfish season and the most favourable moon and tide phases, but still represents incredible fishing.

To put it in perspective, our two crews fishing the first of two trips landed 66 sailfish for the five days, an average of six fish a day per crew. We thought that was good action, with the best day being when both crews scored 11 fish each. But it pales into insignificance when compared with the Agitator crew’s numbers. Having said that though, it’s a case of horses for courses: our numbers were good in comparison to the number of billfish bites most people experience in New Zealand!

While in Los Seunos, we met professional Kiwi crewman James ‘Jimmy’ Brown. Jimmy is currently working on a private boat and was telling us just how ‘hot’ the bite can get. During one contest, with just a few hours to go and their team dragging the chain, they heard of a good bite some 30 kilometres away. So they steamed at full speed towards the action, arriving with just 90 minutes to go until stop fishing – but immediately got amongst the action. The result was over 30 sailfish in ninety minutes, catapulting the team into second place.

“I had 35 baits rigged as we headed to the action, and was sure that would be enough – except I hadn’t accounted for such a concentration of fish in the one spot,” Jimmy says.

“It was absolute madness, with quadruple hook-ups everywhere. I was charging around the cockpit leadering and releasing fish while trying to get more baits rigged – utter chaos, but great fun!”

My own trip was split into two groups. The first bunch of eight anglers was divided into two crews, many with their partners, who would target mainly sailfish on the ‘inshore’ grounds. The second group benefited from a hastily re-arranged schedule and was fortunate to get ‘offshore’ for a couple of nights, fishing the FADs 150 kilometres out with blue marlin the target species. That experience will be recounted next issue.

The bulk of the fishing is done within a 60-80 minute ‘steam’ from the marina. The two boats we were using – the Spanish Fly and Dragin’ Fly were locally-built 12.8m Maverick sport fishers with a cruising speed comfortably over 20 knots, thanks to twin 450hp Caterpillar diesels in the engine room.

These craft were well suited to day trips and boasted experienced captains and crews. Each morning they would start early rigging baits – chin-weighted ballyhoo in the main – and we would catch mackerel and small yellowfin, which were kept alive in the tuna tubes on the way to the grounds.

There was also a supply of larger mullet, rigged behind Iland Lure heads and trolled behind the dredges when targeting marlin.

For sailfish, the main technique consisted of teasers followed by a rigged ballyhoo.

More often than not the bite came as a blind strike, as opposed to seeing a fish in the spread and dropping a bait back to it. When the line was pulled from the clip, the technique involved dropping the rod and free-spooling the line, before slowly pushing up the drag to try and roll the circle hook into the corner of the fish’s mouth.

If the hook-up was missed and the bait remained intact, the rod was raised with the reel in free spool, but held in place with thumb pressure. This saw the ballyhoo once again swimming in the hope of enticing a second shot, and if the fish had not felt the prick of the hook the first time, there was a good chance it would return.
Quite often there were multiple bites, resulting in the crew and the anglers dancing around the cockpit to the sound of wailing ratchets. Sailfish mayhem – you gotta love it!

Most of the fish were around the 30-35kg mark, but with several well into the fifties, the bigger fish seeming more prolific wider out. Whatever their size though, nearly all put up a spectacular and very aerial fight!

Over the five days the two crews swapped boats daily, adding to the proceeding’s variety. There were two crew on the deck plus the skipper, and always one of them spoke English well enough to ensure good communication.

We were in Costa Rica on the shoulder of both the sailfish and blue marlin seasons. Sailfish are present year-round, but are more abundant December through to March. The ‘offshore’ blue marlin season kicks in from May.

A number of years ago, the Costa Rican government undertook a study into the economic value of sport fishing – tourism is a huge part of the country’s income – just as has occurred recently in New Zealand. It was found a billfish caught and released recreationally was far more valuable than one caught once and eaten. Consequently, billfish cannot be targeted commercially within 40 nautical miles of the coast, and it is illegal for recreational anglers to kill billfish.

The charter fleet knows which side their bread is buttered on, so show the fish a huge amount of respect. As a result, the sailfish are not brought on board for a photo because they might get damaged in the process. Instead, the angler holds the fish by the bill in the water alongside the reversing boat; the sail is spread and a nice photo taken before the fish is released – a great way to do it. As well as billfish, we encountered good numbers of yellowfin tuna, although these were not particularly big, with the best landed being an estimated 20kg. There are bigger fish present to 70-80kg, but these tend to come through in October to December.

Mahimahi is another regular species off the Costa Rican coast, appearing in good numbers during the rainy season – May to November – when there is plenty of debris washed down the rivers and drifting around offshore, providing shelter for mahimahi and the small baitfish they like to target. Wahoo also appear about the same time, and can be caught close to shore around headlands. The same applies to another popular recreational species, roosterfish.

Having spent a couple of weeks in Costa Rica, both on and off the water, Faith and I found it a fascinating place to visit and look forward to heading back that way in the near future. If anyone has a right to lay claim to being the ‘billfish capital of the world’, Costa Rica does. 

 

	This article is reproduced with permission of    New Zealand Fishing News July 2016 - By Grant Dixon Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited