Tarpon Fishing

After Lake Arenal we drove seven hours all the way to the south eastern part of Costa Rica on the Caribbean side.  The second day there Dad and I went out fishing with a guide for tarpon.  Dad has never caught a tarpon and it is on his fishing "bucket list".  We were on the water by seven.  On the way to the main tarpon-fishing area, we stopped at a spot that was teeming with small baitfish.  Every once in a while we would see a humongous tarpon roll at the surface (they go to the surface and "roll" because they are air breathers and are taking a breath of air).  They were all around us feeding.  We fly-fished for half an hour but we didn't have a single bite.  Our guide decided to move on to the Sixoala River, which is the main tarpon fishing spot, but when we arrived we found nothing at all.  We traveled back to the first spot that we had found and fly-fished there for another three hours and still didn't get a single bite!  The only fish we caught were two jacks when we tried trolling in the area.

We headed back from lunch with a new plan.  Arriving  back for the afternoon half of  fishing we would use spinning rods instead of fly rods.  We met the guide with our revised fishing gear.  We motored straight back to the spot that we had discovered earlier in the day.  Right away I had a fish on that took a bunch of line out non-stop!  Sadly, ten seconds into the fight the line snapped.  Dad caught a big mackerel and reeled it all the way up next to the boat.  As the guide reached down to snag the fish out of the water, the fish did something similar to a seizure and got away.  The guide was obviously disappointed and later told us that he loved mackerel.  

Four other boats with fly-fishermen showed up and we started to see tarpon roll again.  After fishing for another hour I got a bite.  Immediately we knew that it was a tarpon!  It took off without slowing down and jumped completely into the air several times.  It took me eight minutes until I managed to get it tired out next to the boat.  Right then the line broke, but we still count it as a complete catch because it had given up and was drifting on the surface right next to the boat.  

Dad had one on but during its first jump the hook came out of its mouth.  Unfortunately, we didn't have another bite the rest of the day, and none of the other boats even had one on.  We are planning on going back out with another guide before we leave the area so Dad can mark catching a tarpon off his bucket list!