Sport Fishing

Mid-way through our stay in Costa Rica, we charted a sport fishing boat that took us way out into the Pacific in search of sailfish, dorado, tuna or perhaps the coveted marlin.


We got to the dock in Quepos at around 7:00am that morning. We had to buy Costa Rican fishing licenses to make it legal (approx. $25/each), then we met up with the boat captain. The Quepos dock was in the process of undergoing a massive renovation and was developing an impressive marina. We hope to go back when it's finished.


Our boat, No Limit, was under the leadership of boat captain Dave Dobbins, who apparently landed in Costa Rica from Virginia somehow. Captain Dave had 11 years of captain experince and a cooler full of sandwiches and drinks ready for us to enjoy out on the high seas, and we were headed out by 7:30am.


This was Dave's first time out on No Limit, but he was confident we would find plenty of fish. The seas off the coast of Quepos are famous for sailfish and dorado, and that's what we were after.


After about an hour or so of boating out into the sea, we put down the lines and left the rest of the day up to chance and Captain Dobbins. After only 15 minutes we had something hooked.


Since this was my first sport fishing outing, Byron let me take the first fish. I could tell it was something much larger than any of the fish I've ever caught out of the West Farm pond.


I fought it for nearly 30 minutes before we could tell it was a sailfish.


It jumped out of the water, fighting the line, but giving me a chance to reel it in closer.


Remember how I mentioned this was Dave Dobbins' first time out on No Limit? Well, I got the sailfish up to the boat, anticipating a nice picture with my prized catch. However, Ole' Dave took a wrong turn with the boat and ran plum over the sailfish, cutting it to shreds in the bright blue water. I got a good idea of how large this fish was when I could see down into it's (now open) body cavity.


This is what a sailfish looks like.


We didn't let that get us down. The adrenaline rush came to a halt when I realized how exhausting it was to reel in a sailfish. The water was beautiful and we had the whole day out on the boat. Nearly two hours went by before we got another bite. This time it was a tuna.


Byron reeled in this tuna, which he said felt like reeling in a rubber tire. It weighed around 25 pounds, with lots of good eating meat on it.


A couple hours later, just before calling it a day and pulling in the lines, we got one last bite. I took the fighting chair one last time and reeled in a dorado. Although the sailfish met a tragic end, the dorado was the highlight of the day.

Weighing at around 30-40 pounds (depending on which day I tell the story), it was quite a fight getting it in the boat. After about 25 minutes, we got it closer and watched it as it fought the line and jumped out of the water.



Watch it here:





The dorado made all the waiting time in the boat well worth it, and we headed back to shore with plenty of fish.


We took our fish (after giving half of it to the captain and his help for their trouble) to a local restaurant called El Gran Escape. We took the 40 pounds of fish meat into the open-air establishment in a plastic sack. They cooked up some amazing dishes for us.

With the tuna, they made sushi...



With the Mahi Mahi (dorado), they made Mahi Mahi fingers...



And then they prepared blackened Mahi Mahi and tuna steaks with the rest of the fish. It was by far more fish than the two of us could eat, but, man, it was so good. It was only about $10 a plate for all of this fish.