Big pike and walleye at Le Domaine Shannon

Back from another fishing adventure to Lac Wahoo at Le Domain Shannon. The objective was to try to land some big pike over 10 lbs, and possibly some keeper sized walleyes for the table.

My friend Jimmy came along for this adventure. I'm always happy to fish with Jimmy, being that we are friends since childhood. As well, Jimmy's skill level when it comes to casting is second to none, and he regularly outfishes me by a long shot when we target predatory species like bass and pike. While I have fished Lac Wahoo many times over the past decade, Jimmy only came along with me a few years ago, during the month of June. We didn't get any big fish during that trip, and I mentioned that July was one of the best months to target bigger fish there. I figured that the combination of Jimmy's skill level, and my knowledge and experience on the lake, would give us a shot at some very good results.

Day 1:

After driving through the night, we ran into some car trouble on the last forest road, about 10 km away from our cabin on Lac Wahoo. I'll skip the details for now, and get to that at the end of this blog post...

After getting a later start than expected, we started off  casting lures, as the lake was still relatively calm. After a cast or two, Jimmy raised a giant pike that swiped at his lure next to the boat, but didn't get hooked. Sort of heartbreaking but hopeful for another one at the same time. Jimmy had the shakes, but I assured him that he would very likely have another shot at a big pike.

We kept casting, eventually landing some pretty small pike, including our first of many double headers. 

Soon after, Jimmy landed one big enough to feed both of us nicely, so we knew what lunch the following morning would consist of.

After the wind picked up and boat control became difficult, we decided to do some shallow trolling. I rigged a buzzbait on the shallower line, and Jimmy put a spinnerbait on for the deep line, while I trolled in roughly 5-8 feet. We caught a few more small pike, and eventually, Jimmy hooked into a much better pike. He didn't realized just how big it was until we landed it. 

A thick 38 inch / 12.5 lbs pike on our first pass of the lake! Way to start your trip...

After a short celebratory pause at the cabin, we got back to trolling. This time, I tied on a deeper running spinnerbait, and sure enough, I got hit within less than 1 minute. Another solid pike landed.

After some more pike, Jimmy landed a walleye, that we added to our fillets in the fridge back on shore, and we ended of the day casting topwater lures. Many more small pike, including this one I caught on the 3d bat lure.

Day 2:

After being up for 30+ hours Saturday to Sunday night, we slept in. Just as well, pike fishing had slowed down a lot, we were struggling to catch them most of the morning, no matter the trolling depth. Wind was too strong to try casting as well. At some point in the afternoon, I decided to hit another spot nearby on foot, where I've had some decent mixed bags of pike and walleye.

I tied on a Rapala Countdown, and sure enough, I hit walleye gold on my second cast.

By the time Jimmy joined my, I already had 2 walleye on shore, and we caught a couple more. Unfortunately, his was under the legal limit of 37 cm, but mine were all within the slot size limits. We kept the 3 walleyes I caught, and made quick work of them back at the fillet table.

Back on the boat, the evening bite was a bit better than the morning bite for pike as far as numbers, but nothing too sizeable was landed.

We noticed a large branch "swimming" across the lake, with the help of a busy beaver.

Day 3:

We started the day off by trolling a bit deeper with the help of my portable sonar. My goal was to stay in the 12 to 15 foot range, hoping to eliminate many of the smaller sized pike we had been catching over the first couple days, and focus on bigger fish. 

Once in a while, the plan works out better than expected. The first hit came on a Rapala Husky jerk I was trolling. From the big head shakes, I knew we hit a fish, much bigger than I'd keep for the table. After a good fight, I hoisted another nice pike out of the lake.

After releasing the pike, I noticed that it had broken one of the treble hooks on my lure. I decided to replace the broken hook before resuming trolling. While I was getting the hook changed, Jimmy started casting a spinnerbait, and sure enough, he hooked into another big fish. Another good fight, and another monster pike landed by Jimmy.

Talk about being at the right place at the right time with the right presentation. This one was slightly longer than his first big pike a couple days prior, measuring 39 inches and weighing 10.5 lbs. Released in good condition as usual.

That turned out to be the only success we had deep trolling for the day, most of the rest of the pike we caught were in shallower water, and quite small as well, except for this one. 

With a but of rain coming in, I decided to hit my shore spot, which produced my biggest walleye of the trip at 19 inches / 2.25 lbs. 

Not a monster by any means, but a very welcome addition to the fillet table, and subsequently, my freezer.

Day 4: 

This was our final day of fishing, as we planned to leave early the following day to to potential issues with my car, which I'll get to shortly.

We spent much of the day trolling various depths, 12 to 15 feet, 15 to 20 feet, and deeper as well. Each pass of the entire lake takes about 1.5 to 2 hours, we eventually switched back shallow trolling after spending half a day with not much to show for. Jimmy ran his spinnerbait on the shallow side, with a trolled a Mepps 5 spinner. Jimmy connect with many tiny pike, seemingly a lot small than most of the small ones we caught over the previous 3 days. Eventually, I hooked a nicer fish.

We decided to end the trip by casting the calm waters before an incoming storm. A few more tiny pike, and eventually, I caught another walleye casting the Mepps 5 spinner that I was trolling for pike.

That ended our trip, which turned out to be extremely successful. We landed well over 100 pike in 4 days, including 2 in the double digit weight class. Walleye fishing was better than normal with a total of 10 walleye landed, many of which we caught while we were targeting pike. The weather was great, most of the rain only came after dark and ended early morning, so we enjoyed a good 8 to 9 hours of fishing per day.

As a bonus, we found some decent sized patches of wild blueberries, and both of us picked a bunch before leaving.

Over the years, Lac Wahoo has become my favorite lake to fish at Le Domaine Shannon, though they have many other very productive lakes, for both pike and walleye. Hoping to head back there again, hopefully sooner, rather than later...

As for the car trouble I mentioned earlier on, here is the tale of that "adventure", for those of you that may be interested.

Travelling on forest roads many times over the past couple decades, I have come to expect tire trouble. Usually, picking up nails is the culprit, and as such, I travel with a patch kit, bike pump, car lack, and spare "doughnut" style replacement tire that came with my CRV.

Before this trip, my wife had a small fender bender, that added some tear to an already damaged plastic skid plate under the front end of the car as well.

As we got closer to our destination, the damaged skid plate kept getting worse, until it was partially dragging on the dirt roads. Sort of annoying, but nothing serious. Sure enough, shortly after turning onto the final (and roughest) road we take to get to our remote cabin,  my front tire goes flat. I had all the repair gear handy for a slow leak, but when I inspected the tire, it actually had a horizontal tear in it, about 1 inch long. Now way to fix it with a plug from my patch kit, we were forced to unload the trunk to get to the spare tire, and ended up changing it before making out way to the cabin. 

Skid plate damage:

Spare tire:

At this point, many thoughts were running through my mind. The spare tire is not designed for off road use, nor long highway trips. I was hoping that perhaps someone from the camps crew may pass by, but that was not likely, as we were the only ones out in the remote area, some 30 kilometers away from the main camp. With no cel phone signal or satellite phones, we had no way of reaching anyone to help, or maybe order a new tires for us and possibly have it delivered to the main camp.

Eventually, with incoming rain a couple evenings later, I brought the tire into the cabin, hoping that I could find some way to fix it. Luckily, that repair kit I bought a couple years earlier came with 6 plugs, one of which I used last summer during a trip to Mijocama. After getting the first plug in, I added a second, then a third, and eventually a fourth, which finally sealed the tear enough for the tire to hold full pressure overnight.

The makeshift workshop:

The improvised patchwork:

Not too beautiful, but now that the patch had not leaked overnight, it was time to see if it would hold the cars weight. Once the spare was off, and the car hoisted, we figured it would be easier to work on the skid plate as well.

First, we lifted the inner sections. With a rivet missing, I improvised by using a branch of the same diameter, and breaking it off at the opening, then covering it with duct tape, to avoid it moving or poking the tire. Then, I tied the bottom end to the main chassis, using braided fishing line, and covered with duct tape to protect it from damage.

See both duct taped areas:

Then, we made sort of "handles" out of duct tape, the threaded them through and around a couple slot at the front of the skid plate, twisting and sealed them down with more duct tape.

Behold, the miracle of duct tape and it's thousands of uses...

By now, the jack sank into the sand a bit, and we weren't able to raise the car high enough to get the original tire back on. I lowered the rotor onto a log to avoid damaging it, and used a couple flatter logs under the jack to get the tire changed.

The following morning, the tire kept it's pressure. I originally had planned to take it on a test drive, but Jimmy advised against it. Either way, whatever happed was going to be; either it worked like a charm, or we'd be changing the tire again...

Thursday morning, we left extra early just in case. Not knowing if I'd be changing another tire on the road, or if I'd be heading to a garage in Grand Remous or Mont Laurier to find a replacement tire, or maybe not even making it back to the main camp. We took the drive extra slow, instead of my usual 45 minutes or so, we took close to 1.5 hours to make the 30 km trek to the main camp. Lucky of us, as we saw our only moose of the trip on the way there.

One we got that far, I figured the worst was behind us. The tire was holding up, and eventually, hit pavement an additional 73 kilometers later, though on much better dirt roads. I checked the tire pressure again at that point, and it held up perfectly. 

Needless to say, I didn't bother looking for a new tire up there, and it held up find all the way home to Montreal, 300 kilometers later.

It's little wonder that most people driving on this sort of terrain opt for raised pickup trucks with off road tires. But for myself, who makes a trip or two per year, I'm comfortable enough using my city vehicle. That being said coming prepared, and with the right mindset, can make all the difference in these sorts of tricky situations.

  

Mijocama fishing summer 2024

Back from our latest family trip to pourvoirie Mijocama to kick off summer 2024. As usual, family and friends joined for another epic trip, shortly after the opening of bass season. Over the years, we have come to expect some good bass fishing there, though one can never be sure. After enjoying some of the best largemouth bass fishing in a decade during our 2020 and 2021 trips to Mijocama, 2023 was quite different, with very few bass, and a lot more pike landed.

For this trip, I was joined by my three youngest sons. Levi's wife Lindsey joined us, as well as Eli's girlfriend, Audrey. We rented a couple boats to accommodate the 6 of us, and there began our planned fishing adventure.

Day 1: 

With heavy rain in the forecast for most of the day, we got to Mijocama around noon, and before bothering to rent the boats, we broke camp at our usual cabin. By mid afternoon, the rain had just about stopped, so we got a couple boats, and headed out to try our luck casting for pike, being that the bass in Giles lake are typically evening feeders.

After a few missed hits and follows from some small at my first spot, rain chased us off the lake. About an hour later, the sun popped out, so I headed out to try again. Sure enough, I landed a small pike on my second cast, only to be chased off the lake by a heavy thunderstorm again.

The thunderstorm turned into steady light rain, which kept my family indoors for the rest of the evening. As my friend Jimmy and his gang had just arrived, he and I put on our rain gear, and headed out to cast for pike in the rain. The pike were nipping at out lines non stop, but were not biting. Still, it kept us motivated to stay out until dark, with only 2 pike landed to show for. As I had planned to make some shore lunch for my family, we kept them.

Day 2:

Up bright and early while my family was sleeping in, I headed out to do some more casting for pike. On my way, I stopped by Jimmy's cabin, and picked him up to join, along with our friend Marcel. Marcel was casting a swimbait, and literally drew first blood, landing the first pike, and hooking his finger during the release. At least it didn't go in past the barb. I hooked 2 small pike as well, nothing worth keeping. 

After the morning bite, we headed to camp for morning prayers.

Once, done, I headed back to camp for breakfast, and took Zev out for some trolling. Using a Rapala Countdown on one rod, and a Smithwick Rogue on the other, I stayed with that setup for the duration of the trip. 

While apprehensive at first, Zev was quite happy when the line went off and he landed his first pike of the trip.

Headed back to shore, filleted the pike, and the family enjoyed a nice lunch of 6 deboned pike fillets, coated in batter,and pan fried in butter. Absolutely delicious when they are that fresh, though they need some time in the fridge to let rigor mortis set in. This prevents the fillets from "curling" in the frying pan when fish are too fresh.

After lunch, Zev wanted to go to catch some sunfish. Luckily, I convinced him to try some more trolling, hoping for a hot bite. Sure enough, it didn't taker long for Zev to land his second pike of the day, after losing one.

As we neared our cabin, I decided to make a trolling pass in an area that hasn't produced much pike in a while. Miraculously, Zev managed to land 3 more pike on our first pass, ensuring that we now had enough pike to feed more of us the following day, as my brother and his 2 sons joined us later that afternoon.

Seeing Zev's success, both my sons and their women came out for a mid afternoon troll. Unfortunately, the bite had died down, and we didn't manage any hits at all. Levi and Lindsey reserved my guiding services for the evening, during which we spent most of out time casting topwater lures hoping to get some surface action from either bass or pike. Unfortunately, the fish were not co-operating with our plans, but we ended up staying out until dark and getting a nice sunset pic of Levi and Lindsey.

Day 3:

After a night pf partying, I was up early for the morning bite. I headed out with Eli and Audrey for some casting, and my first spot paid off with another nice pike.

That was the only bite of the morning, despite whatever else casting and trolling we managed. After another hefty lunch of pan fried pike fillets, we spent the early afternoon relaxing. Levi spent much of his time playing guitar and target shooting.

By mid afternoon, I was contemplating what happened to all the bass in the lake. None of us had even seen one, let alone catch any. In a short 2 years or so, the bass fishing had gone from amazing to just about non existent, despite the the warm and sunny conditions that normally make for great bass fishing at Mijocama.

I decided to make the trekk out to Lac Chat. This small lake is connected to Giles lake by a small creek, and having fished there about 12 years ago, I knew the lake had a population of both bass and pike. As Lac Chat gets almost no fishing pressure, I figured that the bass population must have exploded over the past dozen years, and that I'd be in for a treat. At the same time, I found it mind boggling that I'd actually have to go to another lake to look for bass, as over the past couple decades, bass caught on our many trips often outnumbered the pike by a 100 to 1 ratio.

Anticipating the horrendous boat conditions on lac Chat, I confirmed with the owners that no one had been there in a couple years. I got a set of paddle to take along, and figured I may be spending hours bailing the small boats out after all the heavy rain and snow melt, etc.

Jimmy declined my last minute invitation to join, and luckily, I ran into Eyal, one of our group's teen boys, that I sort of initiated into fishing a numbers of years ago. He had landed his first ever pike as a small kid on my boat during one of our trips, and I also taught him how to fillet his catches during one of our previous trips to Mijocama. As most of his friends on the trip weren't there to fish, he was more than happy to join me on this adventure.

We motored our boat to the portage point on Giles lake, anchored it, and made the 7-10 minute trekk to the Lac Chat boat launch, carrying a few basic necessities. We didn't bother with any sort of motor, which wouldn't have helped either way. 

The boat situation was not good at all. One rowboat had a huge leak, the other was filled to the brim with water, as were most of the canoes. The last canoe had a hornets nest in it, and the last rowboat was missing most of the seats. I found a replacement seat, banged it into the middle of the boat, as the back was completely twisted out of shape. As such, we weren't able to row properly, but managed to get along by paddling with them.

While the day was hot a mildly windy, I figured that the lake would calm down for a nice topwater evening bite. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The wind only increased, which made non existent boat control in the tiny 12 foot shallow aluminum boat.

For our first pass, we simply let the wind take us across the entire lake, while casting mid to shallow depth lures across the shoreline. Eventually, we landed on a shallow shoal at the end of the lake, which was also sort of sheltered from the wind gusts. 

On my first cast, I had 2 nice missed hits on my topwater lure. Eyal followed up casting his spinnerbait, and sure enough, hooked a decent pike, that ended up breaking off the lure next to the boat when it wrapped into a log. Despite losing his first pike of the trip, Eyal was happy to have hooked it.

A few casts later, a bigger pike exploded on my topwater lure, and after a few good runs, |I managed to land it by hand, as we didn't bother bringing along a net.

By far, my biggest pike of the trip, and on a topwater lure no less. Made the long trekk to Lac Chat that much more enjoyable.

We worked our way back across the lake against the wind, stopping to cast a few minutes at any spot that looked promising. Unfortunately, no more fish, and still not a bass in sight. At this point, I figured that something must have happened to the deteriorated bass fishery. In my mind, I had originally figured that it was overharvest that crashed it on Giles lake, but as very few people fish Lac Chat over the years, and even less keep anything from there, there must be another cause. Either way, I was happy to have made the trekk out there to try it, and very happy that Eyal came along, despite the relative absurdity of the fishing conditions. From the dinky leaking boat, to the swarming bugs in the deep woods, he never once complained, and happy to be there trying a new adventure with me. We got back to Giles lake shortly before dark, and called it a day.

As I arrived, Eli had just hooked another topwater pike, his first of the trip, on a one knocker Zara Spook, just before dark.

Day 4:

Again, I was up bright and early, after another long night filled with lots of alcohol and many laughs, as it was Levi's birthday. (sorry for the blurry pic).

Heading out alone, I managed to hook and lose a small pike, without much else to show for. Later on, Levi and Eli headed out together, and Zev joined his cousins on their boat, leaving me out solo. I managed to land the first pike of the day while trolling. I radioed Levi to join, and now we had both of our boats making trolling passes in the same area. 

This time it was Audrey's turn, and she landed her first ever pike while trolling a Rapala X-rap.

While I was done harvesting pike for the trip, as we had already eaten 7 of them over the past couple days, she kept it. I filleted it for her, and she enjoyed it after Eli cooked it using my recipe.

Later that evening, it was Eli and Audrey's turn to come out on my boat. Success was immediate, with Audrey landing the first pike within a few seconds of out first trolling pass. The trolling bite continued, and they ended up landing 2 pike each for the evening.

Levi and Lindsey were leaving to head home, so they didn't get much fishing done. Hopefully, they'll have a shot at redemption next time around...

Day 5:

The strong North winds brought in a massive cold front overnight, which dashed any hopes of us getting some bass fishing done on our last day of the trip. After dressing up in our warmer clothing for the first time of the trip, we spent a bit of time trolling for more pike. Again, out timing was good, and Zev, Audrey and Eli ended up landing another 5 pike in total.

None were big at all, similar to the previous evening. But landing a total of 9 pike while trolling in a total of maybe 4 or 5 hours combined between the 2 outings, was far better than anyone else in our group had managed, outside Zev on day 2. Everyone was all smiles.

We stopped fishing by midday, as we planned to head home by late afternoon, after yet another bbq lunch.

All in all, another successful trip, where everyone involved had a memorable time. The pike were more aggressive, but a lot smaller on average than last year. The massive surprise was that between a good 30 of us, no one manage to land a bass in 5 days, and to my knowledge, I was the only that spotted a decent sized one cruising in the shallows all trip long.

I'll try to do some research online as to what might have possibly happened to them, but suffice to say, that I doubt we will see the 50+ bass days of yesteryear at Mijocama any time soon. I'm thinking it may possibly have been LMBV, which affect bass and sunfish, which seem to have been affected as well.

 

Costa Rica fishing

Just got back from my first Jungle adventure in Costa Rica. My wife and I were planning some sort of celebratory trip for our upcoming 30th wedding anniversary this summer, so when my brother in law called us about a destination Bar Mitzvah he was planning for Costa Rica a while back, we agreed to join them. Both my wife and I have never been to Costa Rica prior to this trip, and most of it was scheduled to be a jungle adventure, split between the regions of Arenal and Santa Teresa beach.

As usual, most of the other 15 or so participants in this trip had various activities planned, while I knew that I wasn't much interested in much outside of fishing. As such, my plan was to bring along a few lures, some terminal tackle, and my telescopic 6 foot rod paired with a 30 series spinning reel.

We landed in Liberia Airport around noon on Sunday. After renting our car, we made our way to the Arenal Volcano region of El Castillo, where my brother in law had rented a villa for a few nights. We arrived to join them by mid afternoon, as sunset in that area is quite early, around 6 pm, due to Costa Rica being near the equator, and not using daylight savings time.

This is the view of the active volcano from our villa:

My nephews and their cousins at the lookout point:

An most importantly, the big reservoir where I planned to spend all of the following day shore fishing:

After spending our first night in the jungle, I was up bright and early, woken by the sounds of birds, mixed in with the occasional roar of howler monkeys and crowing roosters. After my sunrise prayers followed by a big breakfast, I made my way down to the muddy banks of the reservoir.

The reservoir named "Lake Arenal", contains small numbers of a local fish called "Guapote". Nicknamed as "rainbow bass" in English, it isn't actually part of the bass family. From what I had previously read, they will hit lures similar to what we use to catch smallmouth bass, and some locals near the shore confirmed that spinners and topwater lures may be my best bet.

Unfortunately, Lake Arenal is likely the toughest reservoir I have ever fished. I spent nearly 3 hours casting on foot, without sighting any form of life in the reservoir, aside from one tiny minnow. The water level was a good 15 to 20 feet low, and it's basically a structureless mud bowl, aside from some flooded tree stumps in very shallow water.

Eventually, I made my way back to where I accessed the lake, and rented a kayak for a couple hours, hoping I'd have better luck trolling, of fishing slightly deeper. No such luck, and the wind picked up after the first hour or so. The whitecapped waves were coming over the sides of the kayak, and I had a tough time trying to control the kayak while paddling and trying to fish. 

I did get closer shot of the volcano, as I had paddled my way to the shoreline closest to it's base.

After a couple hours, I returned to fish on foot for a couple most hours, again, without even one bite. The locals were not surprised, telling me that they don't catch much on most days, and I'd be lucky if I did so in one day of fishing. Still, I left happy, knowing that I gave it my best shot, given the circumstances.

My wife and I got a nice evening pic together with the volcano as well, after she spent the day ziplining and rappelling in the jungle with the rest of the family.

The following day, we made our way back to Liberia, and then down to the Western tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, to the surfing town of Santa Teresa Beach. It's most located deep in the jungle, with one main road running along the Pacific Coast. While most of our family booked various resorts and Villas, we chose to stay at a luxury resort on the beach named, Nantipa. 

I'll digress from my fishing adventure for a bit, as I have to give them a great review for high quality of their accommodations, their amazing service, and everything they did for us during our stay.

Hands down, Nantipa was by far the best out of any of the spots the rest of the families with us chose to stay at. So much so, that the family came to us for most of their beach days, meals, and family pictures. Between my wife and I, we have never stayed in a better quality resort, nor have ever found friendlier staff. From extremely comfortable beds and very clean rooms, to the beautiful scenery, and convenient beach front location. The owner (Harry) is on site most of the time, and I was surprised and very pleased that they were very well acquainted with our special requests (Shabbat/kosher) as observant Jews. After all, this is remote Costa Rica, not New York or Miami... After leaving, we ran into issues with local rods being closed dur to flooding, and missed our flights home. After turning in circles on horrendous jungle rods for a few hours, we returned to Nantipa, Where Mariana helped us reroute our travel plans to get us home to Canada safely the following day. I can't thank them enough!

Our arrival welcome pic:

Back to fishing... After arriving and unpacking by mid afternoon, I headed straight for the beach, armed with my fishing gear. All beaches in the area are open to the public, but Nanitipa resort has their own private area with a beachside resto bar, hammocks, and tables. Extremely convenient.

The tide was closer to the low end when I arrived. 

Having only fished the Pacific ocean once before while on a trip to Hawaii, I started off with what had been my most successful tactic back then, namely, micro fishing off the rocky reefs. I found a bunch of snails on the rocks, plucked a few, and hooked one for bait after cracking it's shell.

I dropped the bait hook into a deep pool between the rocks, and sure enough, I immediately hooked into a small fish, possibly in the squirrelfish family.

 If any of you can positively identify the species, feel free to contact me.

After catching a few more of the same species, I headed back inside for the night.

The following morning, I was up bright and early, ready to hit the Pacific Ocean by boat for the first time ever. I had booked a  6 hour inshore fishing outing with Jason Tours, launching out of the nearby fishing town of Malpais. None of the family members I invited along seemed to interested into venturing out on the deep blue sea in 4 to 6 foot waves in a small 23 foot bay boat, so I went solo. Just as well, more chances to catch fish myself...

I met up with Captain Erik, who proceeded to launch his boat from a trailer lowered down to the waterfront from his "slip" by a powerful winch.

We were on the water in no time, and headed to troll his first spot, hoping to hook into some Mahi Mahi or Yellowfin Tuna.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any success trolling that spot. We moved further out, to deeper and clearer water. Set up the troll, and again, no luck, despite running 4 lines along some floating weedbeds, which often attract the smaller baitfish were were hoping the pelagic species would be feeding on.

Erik spent much of the time on the CB radio with some of the other guides, and one of his friend had mentioned getting on to a good bite 10 miles or so further offshore, He asked me if I wanted to try there, and I agreed, as I just wanted to catch fish, inshore or not. On the way, he mentioned to we need to look out for diving birds and bottlenose dolphins, as fishing near them would likely be out best bet to catching fish. As we got close to his friend's hotspot, we encountered the birds and dolphins we'd been looking for. Unfortunately, no bites. I asked if we were going to try some inshore fishing, so we planned to head back closer, to end the day. 

Before doing so, he passed by his friend, and sure enough, his guest was hooked up to a mahi mahi. Even better, were were completely surrounded by pelagic fish species, clearly visible a few feet under the surface in water about 500 feet deep. I cast out a skirted jig, and as soon as it hit the water, I hooked up to a skipjack tuna. Erik planned to keep the skipjack for bait to use later on, so into his livewell it went. 

I took another cast, and again, as soon as he put the boat in gear, I was hooked up to another skipjack tuna. Rinse repeat, over and over. Eventually, he gave me a rod with a slightly bigger jig, and I started doing the same, except that I was landing a mix of mainly Mahi Mahi and yellowfin tuna, with a few skipjacks in the mix.

I managed a couple dozen fish in less than an hour of fishing, basically nonstop action. My jig barely made it longer than 10 seconds of trolling without a bite, truly insane while it lasted. Unfortunately, we had to head back, as to 6 hour outing was nearly over, and we were now 20 miles offshore instead of the inshore outing I had planned. Still, I was more than happy at the crazy success rate, and now had enough fish to feed out family for the rest of the trip!

Took a few pics before the long ride back to shore:

Mahi Mahi:

Yellowfin Tuna:

Skipjack Tuna:

After getting back to shore, I helped Erik fillet the catch, packing the yellowfins and most of the Mahi Mahi on ice before driving back to Santa Teresa  Beach.

When I arrived back at Nantipa, I made myself a fresh plate of delicious sashimi, drizzled with olive oil and lime, seasoned with Himalayan salt and fresh ground pepper. Accompanied by a celebratory double shot of aged tequila of course.

Perfect way to end my successful day.

The following day started off by attending my nephew's bar mitzvah across the road at the local synagogue, Chabad of Santa Teresa. 

After brunch there, I decided to try my cluck at fishing with live bait. I started of by catching another of the small fish in the reef, which I then hooked up under a popping cork style bobber using 40 lbs fluorocarbon as a leader. 

Unfortunately, presenting the rig was very difficult in 6-8 foot waves crashing the reef I was on. The bobber was all over the place, and I had to free it from rocks quite often, until I eventually lost if after a good 20 minutes or so. I gave up on the idea of using bait, and reverted to casting lures.

I decided to attempt casting the surf using a Rapala X rap. Not luck casting, but I did speak to one of the locals I ran into, telling me that the best spot was directly behind the Nantipa resort, which is were the both of us were casting. He didn't do any better that day, but mentioned having hooked snapper, Spanish mackerels, and Jack Crevalles there. 

At some point, I decided to try casting the reef instead. Walking along, I found the bobber rig I had lost earlier on, the baitfish was still on, but dead by now. Sure enough, I turned around to find a huge dog, probably a stray doberman coming straight at me. 

Though it was one the of biggest ones I have ever seen, I wasn't too worried, as most the the stray dogs all over the beach seem more friendly, trying to get some food or company from people passing by.

Sure enough, it came at me licking its lips. 

I figured I would feed it the fish, the dog seem happy to take it.

It then changed it's mind, spitting the fish out after chewing it. Maybe the spiny dorsal fin had something to do with it.

No more luck casting my X-rap, I had to end the fishing early due to  a scheduled family photo shoot on the beach with around 17 or 18 of us.

After the photo shoot, around nightfall, I decided to have a family dinner of Mahi Mahi for those of us on the trip that keep kosher. We were extremely happy that the Nantipa staff allowed us to us our own utensils and ingredients, as well as "kasher" on of their gas burners for us. Was not expecting this great level of service and accommodation in the heart of the Costa Rican jungle, but they were more than happy to do so.

The results were great. Everyone (including my fish hating wife) enjoyed the fresh cooked Mahi Mahi, and even went for double and triple servings.

Another perfect end to another day in paradise.

The following day was my final chance at fishing in Costa Rica. I dedicated the day to casting, starting with a hair jig, and then a Rapala Husky Jerk I normally use for pike and walleye. 

Spent a good 3-4 hours casting the surf both from shore, as well as a deeper dropoff I was able to access from a small cliff on a nearby reef, due to low tide. No bites, no a fish in sight. Oh well, at least I know I gave it all I could, and headed back to enjoy a cold beer near the pool, while reflecting on all the fishing I was able to do.

All in all, Costa Rica was one of the toughest places to shore fish, and until the miraculous last hour of success on the boat, it wasn't much better. That being said, as a lifelong angler, sometimes you are just  happy enough knowing that you gave it your all.