Costa Rica

The River from our hotel
Our Hotel
Crocs!
Sierpe
Grant, aka "Mister Roosterfish"
Pablo's boat
Ed's Pompano
Dave, Pablo and trevalle


Last February my good friend, Dave Hummel, and I cooked up a scheme to go fish Costa Rica. We arranged to meet up with Pablo Chavez (who turned out to be a great guy) and fish out of the sleepy little town of Sierpe on the southwest coast. Grant Pine and Ed Holcomb agreed to join us and last week we were off. It was the rainy season and each morning was sunny but man did it pour every afternoon. We boated 6 miles down the muddy river to the ocean, crossed the bar, which was quite an undertaking, and fished the warm waters and mostly caught big eye tuna. Grant was the master of Roosterfish and caught a couple of 20 pounders chucking poppers as big as coke bottles. We swam from the beach in front of Mel Gibson's, saw lots of whales, caught a bunch of fish we had never seen before, spotted iguanas, talked to the howler monkeys, spied parrots, made friends with the locals, drank some imperial, and ate a lot of fresh fish.
Costa Rica is different. In Oregon when we clean our fish we toss the fish guts and heads to the sea gulls or seals. In Costa Rica it was to the crocodiles.
On the way home we all agreed that Sierpe was a nicer little town than expected and Pablo was a terrific guide, but the fishing was just so-so. Nevertheless it was a great trip and I think all four of us had a really good time.