Once again it was easy for Granny and I to get up at 4:30 AM down here in Costa Rica at the Corcovado Beach Lodge on the Osa Peninsula. Today our 4 Corners hosts and founders Chuck Hill and Marvin Rodriguez took us on the Dos Mas blue water boat with Captain Donald Mc Guinness and his mate Andy. Donald is a second generation captain with over 40 years of conventional gear guiding experience. Though not the bulk of his business, Donald also enjoys guiding fly fishing for Pacific sailfish which was exactly what our plan was for today.
We arrived at the Puerto Jimenez dock promptly at 5:45 where Donald and Andy were waiting. I brought my 12-weight Winston and the new Bauer SLT 9/10/11 reel loaded with my Scientific Anglers floating Titan GT WF12F. I let Marvin hook me up with his favorite leader set up and a pink billfish fly. Honestly my 12 set up is a bit light for sailfish but I enjoy running my sponsor equipment through the ultimate testing situations. Ideally, a 14-weight is a better choice but Winston doesn’t make one. Luckily Chuck had a spare 14-weight so we could have a second rig ready at all times.
It was a 45 minute boat ride out of the big bay into the open ocean. Once there Donald eased the engines to trolling speed and Andy sent out six hookless teasers. Several were teaser heads with ballyhoo and one was a sexy looking squid chain that you just knew was going to find us a marlin at some point today.
I’ve had the good fortune of free casting to sailfish on fly but most of the time you must tease them into casting range. The way you do it is drag the hookless teasers behind the boat. When a fish comes and hits one, you work it and try to lead the sailfish to the back of the boat. Once you have him there you yank out the teaser and the sailfish thinks it’s a baitfish that escaped by leaping from the water. This is when you cast your fly. When the fly hits the sailfish thinks the baitfish has landed and comes and eats it. While you wait for your sailfish to arrive your rod is ready with the line all stripped out.
You take turns when teasing for sailfish. My friend Sammy Vigneri and I did plenty of fly fishing for billfish over the years before he passed away. I’ve caught many Pacific sailfish, a striped marlin and one blue marlin. Granny has only been once and that was in Guatemala almost 20 years ago when we were treated by my old boss. As soon as we started, I told her to get up there and take some cracks. The first sailfish arrived into our teasers within 30 minutes.
I’ve been taught that as soon as the teaser leaves the water to cast my fly and land it with a hard splat slightly past and behind the sailfish and immediately follow with a big strip. With a popper it’s a big pop. The idea is to make the sail turn and eat the fly going away from you. Bills and the mouths of all billfish are hard to hook so the idea here is that when the fish is going away the hook slides to the corner of the mouth where a hook has the best chance to penetrate. Here, the guys do it entirely different. They believe Costa Rica sailfish prefer the fly wiggled on the surface rather than popped. They had Granny land her fly in front of the teased fish and had her raise her rod tip high and jiggle the fly. It’s weird and the first three sails we teased ignored it, but the fourth sail we teased sipped her fly like a cutthroat trout!
Next, Granny was instructed to drop her rod tip. They purposely want you to create slack. But only for a second. Once the rod tip is down the line tightens up and you swish the rod the opposite way that the fish is swimming and theoretically the sail goes tight and hooks itself.
That fourth fish that ate Granny’s fly got hooked and ran right to the backing. But then it managed to spit the fly. To me it looked like she did exactly as told but it just didn’t work out. That’s fishing. I got up there next and the same thing happened to me. No matter what, sailfish can be hard to hook.
In the first three hours of teasing we raised eight sailfish and one blue marlin. I was on rod duty for the blue marlin and got several good cast at him. I had a clear view of the mighty fish inspecting my fly. I say “mighty” because the fish was easily 8 feet long. It pectoral fins were electric blue and its eyes the size of a baseballs. No doubt the leviathan fish was sizing me up. Capt. Donald, who by far has the best view from up top on the bridge, says it was much bigger and probably weighed 600lbs. 600lbs! Can you imagine if I hooked it?!?!
Of the eight sailfish we raised, only two cooperated. Its interesting because Donald’s report from yesterday was that the sailfish were eating like crazy. Different days fish do different things. Unfortunately today they were finicky and each of the sailfish that ate for us did it lightly and didn’t get hooked.
Between 11 AM and 1 PM we only raised one more sail. Things really slowed down. That fish didn’t even tease all the way to casting range. But as you know, I never give up. At 2 PM we had another run and raised a few more. Finally I connected to one and soon my Winston was bent and my Bauer Reel was singing. In the distance behind the boat my sailfish was leaping high and wildly.
As expected, my 12-weight and my Bauer 9/10/11 was a bit under gunned. These fish make explosive runs. Their initial burst is 65 mph! It’s scary when you’re the guy holding the rod. I held on and watched my line disappear. My reel got so low on line and backing that Donald threw the boat in reverse and we chased after it before I ran out.
It was hard to keep up with this fish but at least I wasn’t losing more line. But then the sailfish played its card. He charged the boat and dove underneath. I had to droop over the side and hang on to my Winston for dear life. Donald had the boat floored trying to reposition us so the fish would be back in the open to fight. Watch this video!
I won’t get into the fine details but the sailfish put on a heck of a show. But in the end, I prevailed thanks to the fine help of Donald’s boat maneuvering and Marvin’s ability to get ahold of my sails bill the first time I got the fish close enough.
It’s against the law in Costa Rica to lift sailfish from the water. It’s a fantastic rule. You can’t even slide these fish on board for a quick photo. Instead, you must photograph the fish in the water. It’s not a problem. I think this photo Chuck took of Marvin and I is beautiful.
We reeled it in at 4 PM. We raised exactly 14 sailfish and the one blue marlin. That’s a lot of fish and I feel we should have landed at least one more but we didn’t. The sails were not smashing teasers or flies today. It was more of a nip at it or don’t eat it at all game. Granny came close. She had three legitimate hook ups but all three fish shook the fly within a minute.
We’re at the lodge now. We had a fun cocktail hour at the bar down the street and now we just finished up a fine dinner. Marvin’s wife does the cooking here and she’s amazing. I’m exhausted and we have another big day tomorrow. It’s our redo from yesterday when the boat broke. We’re doing a day of inshore. I can’t wait for 4:30 AM!