That’s Fishin’ – April/May/June 2020

What a total blast we have had during our fishing tournament festivities & high season craziness over the past month! The Quepos fishing fleet have been busy providing Offshore and Inshore charters to tourists from all around the world and some magical fishing has been taking place for sure.

The offshore bite during the first weeks of March was nothing short of phenomenal with huge numbers of Sailfish and Tuna keeping our Anglers busy. Many boats got into coveted double digit Sailfish release days and some boats even caught as many as 20 Sailfish in a single day’s fishing, simply amazing fishing wherever you are in the world.

There has been a wide open Tuna bite happening from December through March and we expect this to continue through April. Livebaits have been accounting for many of the larger fish, however, Squidnation Squids, Bass worms, and all manner of Jigs have been catching solid sized Tuna also. We have had lots of fish in the 20-80lb range with regular fish in the 100lb plus category also BUT there is always a much bigger fish lurking down there somewhere and maybe, just maybe, you could be the lucky angler!

GREAT JOB LADIES!!

The 2020 Pescadora ALL LADIES Billfish Championship held at the Marina Pez Vela was a huge success with 34 boats battling it out to see who could be crowned, THE PESCADORA! A huge congrats to Team BIG OH who scooped the top team prize releasing 27 Sailfish over the 2 days event, just wow! Camila Ingram of the BIG OH Team won the top honours for the top female Angler of the weekend, go girl! Team Vaquero came in second place with 16 Sailfish & 1 Marlin whilst team GRAND SLAM took third with 17 Sailfish. The top charter boat was GAMEFISHER II taking sixth place with 12 Sailfish and a Marlin, for an incredible result against some insanely tough competition! Great job guys!

STRESS RELIEVER took the honours for the top Tuna, highly deserved and congratulations guys, whilst GRAND SLAM caught the largest Dorado of the weekend at 28lbs. GOOD DAY took second place in both the Tuna & Dorado divisions and congratulations to Brandi Froelich for releasing her first ever Blue Marlin aboard GOOD DAY during the event! SEA HAG took third place in the Tuna, and BIG TROUBLE took third in the Dorado, whilst SHOE was the Top Tagging boat in terms of number of research tags deployed into Billfish for the Gray FishTag Research program. What a fantastic weekend for all involved, a huge thank you to all of the sponsors, competitors and organizers, we are already looking forward to a bigger and better event next year!

ROOSTERFISH & COWBOYS!

Saturday March 7 witnessed the first ever ROOSTERFISH RODEO here at the Marina Pez Vela which was a huge success and enjoyed by all the Cowboys & Cowgirls that took part! Cowboy Hats were compulsory, as was a ride on the Bucking Bronco which was centre stage at the Awards ceremony! We are pleased to report that there were no broken bones but there were certainly plenty of laughs!

Teams flocked upon Quepos to compete for the Roosterfish Rodeo crown in this one day shoot out style event where points were awarded for the successful catch & release of Roosterfish, the longer the Roosterfish, the more points that were generated which helped form the competitors strategy for the event, should they head for the beaches and fish for greater numbers of smaller Roosterfish or should they head to deeper water to target larger Roosterfish with a higher point value at the rocks and islands locations close to Quepos. Team KAMILA got their strategy exactly on point and put on a simply excellent performance releasing 31 Roosterfish to take top honours during the 1 day event. Huge congrats guys for a fully deserved win! Team PESCADORA took second place with 8 Roosterfish whilst team GOOD DAY finished up third with 5 Roosterfish. This 100% Catch & Release event was another important step in the Marina Pez Vela’s vision to provide fishing tournaments for all ages, budgets, and fishing abilities here in Quepos. Next month we will see the Pelagic Inshore Classic and the Pelagic Kids Inshore tournament which is completely free to take part in and seeks to help promote the kids fishing movement here in Costa Rica. Last year was a total blast and this year looks set to be even better, I would love to hear from you if you would like to take part in any of these events or simply find out more.

INSHORE FISHING

Our Inshore charters out of Quepos provide the perfect option for families looking for a half day fishing experience during their vacation or for the more serious Angler who is looking to tick one of our special native species off their bucket list. Roosterfish, Snapper, Jacks, Mackerel, Corvina, and Snook have dominated the Inshore bite over the past month and should continue to do so as we move through April. This is always an excellent time of year to land a trophy Snook here in Quepos and the Parrita, Naranjo,

Savegre, and Barú rivermouths are the locations to target should a big Snook be your target. Light tackle live baiting is the preferred method to fish inshore here in Quepos but if you prefer to throw jigs or poppers just ask your Captain and he will be able to set you up to fish according to this style.

Good luck out there & tight lines Amigos!

Benn Gilmour
Jackpot Sport Fishing, Marina Pez Vela, Quepos
Cell: 8458 4997 [email protected]