From the Crocodile Bay Lodge, Puerto Jiménez
by Todd Staley, Fishing Director
January 8, 2003
The first of the year started out with a bang as a little bit of everything rose from the deep blue to excite holiday anglers. Our good friend Dave Burkhardt brought his better half Katie who as usual out fished him. Besides a couple of 50 lb roosterfish, she caught an array oy of sails, tuna, and dorado. The Thompson family of four each landed four sailfish after two days of fishing and decided to give roosters a try.
Fly guys have been doing well with big pink chickens that the sails can´t resist. Ten to 15 fish are rising to the teasers and almost all are hot enough to take a swipe at the fly. Speaking of flies. Tom Boyd had the family down fishing his roosterfish dfly and got the roosters as well as a sail and dorado to eat it also.
But our hats go off and the angler of the week award goes to 9 year old Hal Press son of Clifford Press. You could not keep a rod out of this kids hands. He wanted nothing to do with the rainforests, waterfalls or horseback riding.
His scorecard at weeks end read like an old man in a heminway novel. Fifty plus pound roosterfish, 120 lb sailfish, 104 lb tuna, and a 400 lb blue marlin. Those are his top catches. Add a few more sails, tuna, dorado and roosters to the list. A lot of men who have been fishing for year wish they had resume like that. Congratulations Hal. See you next year for a fishing lesson.
January 20, 2003
A good concentration of bait has moved into the area bringing the number of fish raised everyday to proportions that give each angler 6 to 12 shots at catching a billfish. Patrick Basler from "Bites On" made one of his frequent visits to the lodge and took a good number of sails as well as dorado and tuna. He picked up a few nice roosters in the gulf as well as big jack crevalle. A die hard angler, he had to get a few licks in on some big fish before returning home for back surgery.
Good luck Pat. Fly guys are bending some rods on sails as they are falling for pink and white poppers. Robbo Swartenberg stretched some string and bruised some knuckles. "It's not the numbers that count, but the success of beating one on a fly." He was happy at the bar as he recounted his battle with a 100 pounder. Chris Bernset managed to fool a couple of roosterfish with a fly along the shoreline not far from the lodge. They weren't monsters, but anytime you can fool a rooster into eating a clump of chicken feathers, it's something to crow about.
A few marlin have showed up and the number of sails seen this week has increased over the last weeks. Boats are raising as many as 20 sails a day and one boat had three marlin up in the baits but decided not to try the menu. Joe and Mary Bowden ended up catching 19 sails in four days on the water. Their top day was landing nine and they had many in the baits every day.
Tampa Boy Wesley Snapp brought a couple of NASCAR buddies in for just one day of fishing before racing back to Florida for the Daytona races. In four hours offshore, they each bagged a sail and moved inshore to tangle with a couple of roosters. Inshore, the water has really gotten clear and more fish are moving on to the shallow reefs in the gulf. Several dinner size cubera snappers were fooled by topwater plugs and roosters have been crashing schools of bluerunners and small mullet near the lodge. A couple of roosters over fifty pounds were taken in the gulf this week.
January 28, 2003
Everything is about as expected for late January as far as the fishing goes. More sails are moving into the area and the roosterfish have started working their way into the gulf. Fly guy Gerry Wendrovsky spent three days on the water where 27 sails came up into the teasers. Twenty two of them fell for the clump of feathers he offered and he managed to bring nine to the boat for release. Not bad numbers.
John Cassidy is a young 82 years old. He has probably spent more time wetting a line than anyone I know. He took a sail over a hundred pounds on fly tackle and then tussled and won the battle with a 200 lb blue marlin on stand up gear. That¥s right....stand up gear.
Bret Gamrot from Inshore Offshore magazine was down with a group of friends and tackled a good number of sails before inviting me to spend a half day inshore with them before catching their plane back to St. Pete, Fla. I don¥t get to fish much when we are busy so I was really gassed when I took my biggest rooster to date at 75 lbs.
Ted Knothe had a big day on the water inshore by taking 20 fish including 11 roosters. A couple of nice cubera snapper graced the dinner table this week. They were 25 and 30 lbs.Dorado and yellowfin continue to roam the bluewater. A 90 lb tuna was the tops for the week.
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