Kayak Fishing In costa Rica
Arriving in Costa Rica
After getting picked up by the shuttle driver, I spent the next hour staring out the window with my camera, getting blurry shots of every car, mountain, or landscape that caught my eye. While everyone else on the shuttle was grumpy and exhausted from hours of traveling, I could barely contain my excitement. When I arrived at the AirBNB I met my unique host Rob, an expat who had came to Costa Rica on vacation in early September 2001, and ended up having all his flights canceled due to the 9/11 terror attacks. He told me he decided it was a sign he was not supposed to go back, and he’s lived in Costa Rica ever since. Rob was an awesome guy, the kind of host that reminds you what AirBNB is supposed to be. After talking with Rob for a bit I rented a motorcycle from Rob and began to unpack my stuff.
When I arrived at the Airbnb, I rushed inside, dropped my stuff off, and immediately headed towards the door. How could I spend one second unpacking when there was so much to see? Right as I was about to leave, I noticed something on my bed and took a closer look, only to realize it was a scorpion. I didn’t want to kill it, but I definitely didn't want it in my bed. I trapped it with a mason jar, slid a sheet of paper underneath it, and brought it outside. While this may be alarming to some people, i’ve been in the tropics enough times to know that no matter what you do to a property the occasional tarantula, scorpion, and house gecko gets in.
The First Fishing Excursion
After dealing with the scorpion I headed down to the beach to do some scouting and figure out where I was gonna launch a kayak in the morning. After talking to a few fishermen and checking out the area, I decided to go south towards a rocky point and drop off. It was already getting late, and I got less than 4 hours of sleep the night before getting ready to leave, so I got some food at one of the local street meat booths and headed back to get some sleep. In my experience the street meat stands are a reliable place to get authentic, tasty, local food, typically for much cheaper than local restaurants.
The next morning I got up at 4:00 am and met my Airbnb host Robert to borrow one of his kayaks, and headed down to the surf. I brought my 7wt Streamer X, loaded with some Cortland compact intermediate line, and my 10 wt Echo boost filled with Cortland heavy sink fly line, along with a 7 ½ ft St. Croix Triumph to do some jigging. It was still dark out when I began paddling, and once I got a little further out, I began to notice some very large splashing, eerily close to my kayak. Eventually, I heard what sounded like a blowing noise, and I had a strong feeling that I knew what was lurking. When I turned on my headlamp, my suspicions were confirmed, and I discovered a pod of dolphins swimming and surfacing just feet from my kayak. I’ve seen awe-inspiring giant pods of dolphins on boats going off-shore before, but being surrounded by them on the Kayak was a new experience altogether; it truly felt like something out of Jurassic Park.
As I paddled towards the rocky point, the rising sun crept over the horizon and the dolphins dispersed. I managed to find a few pods of bait and breaking fish, but they always seemed to be just a little too far out of my casting range. When I eventually made it to the rocky point I planned to fish, I did what I could and hammered the rocky outcroppings with poppers, big game changers, small clousers, but with the wind and current, if I was lucky, I could get one cast in before I had to reposition. After grinding for a bit, I couldn't find any bigger fish, so I decided to start doing a little jigging. As much as I love fly fishing, it's impossible to take advantage of all the fishery has to offer when you limit yourself to exclusively using a fly rod.
After a few minutes of jigging, I started to get into some small but beautiful reef fish. It seemed like every other drop produced some small grouper, snapper, or trumpet fish. Unsurprisingly, the best action was consistently along ledges where the depth would rapidly drop from 30 to about 100 feet. I stayed in the area for about 2 hours fishing, but after 2 hours of nothing but small reef fish, I decided to move on and do some trolling. I threw a gamechanger on my 10wt, and a metal spoon on my spinning rod, and started paddling towards the next town. As I made my way towards the next town, I saw some beautiful sights but unfortunately didn't run into any cooperative fish.
If you're planning to visit Costa Rica to fish from a kayak, here's a list of smart things to bring along:
10 WT for larger species like jacks or roosterfish
7 ½ slow pitch jigging rod
Epoxy resin jigs
Floating/intermediate line for surface flies and shallow water/flats fishing
Sinking line for deeper water
Extra spools for quick and easy transfer of line types
Waterproof storage bag
Line clippers
Pliers AND forceps (you don't want to remove a streamer from a toothy barracuda with tiny forceps)
Hook sharpener
Box of smaller crab/shrimp flies
Raingear
Polarized sunglasses
Fly comb
Leader wallet
Exploring Costa Rica
Knowing I was going out again the next morning, I didn’t push myself too hard and decided to head towards shore for lunch. There’s no better way to relax after a long morning of fishing than kicking back on the beach with some local food and a cerveza.
I didn’t want to rest all day, so I decided to visit a local nature preserve. It was a 45-minute ride on my motorcycle. I was nervous about heading that far out, but I didn’t rent a motorcycle for nothing. Soon, I was on my way. The entrance to the nature preserve was scattered with mud, potholes, and soft fine sand that made it difficult to traverse on a motorcycle, especially up the steep hills, but luckily I didn’t embarrass myself too bad in front of the shuttle busses full of tourists.
The sanctuary was full of rescued and rehabilitated animals that, for one reason or another, could not be released back into the wild. For example, the park's most famous resident, a two-toed sloth named Lucy, suffered severe burns from grabbing an electrical wire in the wild. Despite extensive rehabilitation, the burns on Lucy's hand cause her to periodically fall, which would likely lead to severe injury or death in the wild. To keep Lucy safe and happy, she is kept in an enclosure with a maximum height of about 12 feet, along with two other two-toed sloths.
Unexpected Adventures
Unfortunately, when I left the nature preserve, it began to downpour, and I had a 45-minute motorcycle ride back to my Airbnb. I took it slow, and things were going okay at first until I approached a pack of dogs. I tried to slow down as a precaution, but as I drove by the first dog, I triggered its prey drive, and it ran directly at me and the bike. It tried to bite my leg, and as I rapidly maneuvered to avoid it, I lost control of the bike and crashed.
Luckily, another motorcyclist was following behind me and scared off the dogs before helping me up. My pants protected me from getting road rash too badly, but when I looked down at my arm, there was so much blood, dirt, and gravel that I couldn’t make out the severity of the wound. Knowing town was still another 35 minutes away, I bent my pedal back into place and got back on the bike. As I rode back to town, the blood from my arm splattered all over me in the wind; by the time I reached town, I looked like I had just left a crime scene.
I foolishly forgot to purchase travel insurance and didn’t have the extra cash for a hospital visit, so I went to a local pharmacy. The pharmacist’s jaw dropped when he saw me, but he agreed to help. I asked for a topical painkiller, but he just laughed, handed me a towel to bite on, and began debriding the wound. Getting road rash is bad enough, but getting embedded dirt and gravel out is pure torture. After what felt like 20 minutes, the pharmacist wrapped my arm and gave me some medication.
After that chaos, it wasn’t hard to decide to spend the rest of the day resting. I grabbed some takeout, returned to the Airbnb, and passed out before 9 PM.
The Big Catch
Sore but ready for another day of adventure, I got up around 2:45 AM and drove to meet Gary Salazar of Costa Rica Kayak Fishing Charters. Our plan was to jig and, if we were lucky, run into a Cubera snapper. After about an hour and a half of pedaling, we made it to the spot right as the sun began to peek over the jungle horizon. The rising sun brought with it the booming calls of howler monkeys, quickly followed by playful splashing from dolphin pods. It was hard not to be fully captivated by the sights and sounds, but I reminded myself I was here to fish.
We began jigging, and at first it was slow, but as the sun rose the bite heated up, and it wasn’t long until I started hooking into some decent red snapper. It’s rare I keep fish, fish like red snapper, and tautog fall into the same unlucky category of fish that are too tasty to release.
After about 30 minutes, I set the hook on something much bigger. Within seconds, I knew it was a Cubera; my drag screamed as the fish fought to return to the reef with all its might. Fighting these fish presents a true dilemma. If you tighten the drag, you risk breaking off, but if your drag is too loose, they'll take you directly into the reef. Unfortunately, I experienced the latter.
After sulking for a few minutes, I re-tied my leader and made a few more drops. As the sun rose higher, the snapper became less frequent and were replaced by more Bonito than I could count. Coming from the northeast, I’ve always referred to them as False albacore and considered them to be difficult and picky fish, but fishing for them in the tropics is a different deal altogether. At certain points, it was hard to even reach the bottom; every other drop seemed to result in a hookup on the fall. We fished until around 1 PM, and as the sun rose higher, the action slowed down. We still had a long trip back to the beach, so we decided to head back. We hoped to finish the day off with a bang, so we decided to troll a live blue runner behind the kayak. I anxiously awaited the sound of screaming drag, but it never came. Altogether, it was an awesome day—I saw beautiful sights and caught a lot of cool fish, even if I didn’t land the one I was after; after all, nothing worth it is ever easy.
