December Report from the Seamounts:
December
Report from the Seamounts:
We released
our first blue marlin with the sun only three fingers over the horizon of Costa
Rica’s seamounts. After chugging all
night, we had hopes of great things that can happen during the hours on either
side of twilight.
Prior to departing
the afternoon before, Capt. James and crew introduced our clients to a blue marlin, sailfish and a bunch of tunas. Had we traveled all night for something that
can be found right out front?
That
question was answered halfway through my first cup of coffee when something
sipped the ballyhoo on the right long and the line fell out of the clip. When everything came tight with a 300 plus
pound blue marlin jumping into the sunrise it was absolutely certain that we
were in the right place at the right time.
Halfway through gallo pinto, local salsichas,
and scrambled eggs another smaller blue was on the left teaser and eagerly
switched to a bonito pitchbait. An hour
after this release, a triple header of blue marlin was chewing baits in the
spread. We hooked two, but only landed
one of them.
By 10 am we
had seen 9 marlin, gotten bites from 7 and landed 5. The afternoon bite slowed a bit, but we did
catch a couple more. The nighttime
show on and above the water was amazing.
We caught a couple of buckets of calamari under a moonless sky, bright
with stars, both fixed and falling.
No bites
from the swordfish on our overnight drift of about 12 miles. The water pushing us along was at least 5
degrees cooler and greener from when we pulled lines out the evening before. Nonetheless we put out our marlin spread and
headed back to the underwater mountain tops.
Apparently the marlins from the day before had moved on and so did we. After three hours of pulling lines during
prime time without seeing a billfish we loaded the live well and bait tubes in
search of a school of tuna on the ride home. We found them.
Nothing in
fishing is certain, not even in Costa Rica and not even at the seamounts or any
other must do destination. For this
reason we recommend booking multiple days.
We got lucky.