The Zancudo Times
Fishing Report February, 2008
This past week, Bob also known as The Hawk, flew into
Golfito Bay,
Costa Rica where I picked him up
by boat. 20 minutes later we were at the lodge enjoying a cold one.
The Hawk fished 3 days, the first day we had 2 Yellow Fin Tunas, 3
Sailfish, 3 Dorados, a quick bite by a big Blue Marlin that we never
hooked, and we lost a 40 lb Rooster fish at the boat on light
tackle. That was the first day!
Day 2: We had countless Sails on light
tackle including 2 at one time, so of course I had to catch one
myself (check out the photo its a good one). At 1:30 or so we found
the "Jackpot" a 55 gallon metal drum floating along with thousands
of fish all around, it was incredible. The small bait fish were
hiding under the can, the mid size fish were eating them, and so
forth. There were Triple Tails, Yellow Tail Snappers, Sharks and
fish tearing up the surface everywhere for 100 yards,but best of all
the Tunas both Yellowfin and Big Eye were chewing, the Dorados were
everywhere like F-16s in formation(to quote the Hawk). We grabbed
the light spinning rods(12 lb test) and using a swimming plug from
Long Island we went nuts. When
we couldn't take it anymore, we had over 30 Tunas and 12 Dorados.
Fish were everywhere, every cooler full and overflowing, fish all
over the deck and the Hawk and I wiped out. The trophy that day was
Hawk's 47lb Dorado on my favorite Shimano spinner (check out the
photo).
Day 3: If you can believe we had anything
left in us, we went out looking for the great Blue Marlin. We fished
most of the morning with a by catch of a Sail and tasty Dorado, but
at just past 1pm when all was quiet, the 30 Gold Penn International
which was in the rod holder of the tuna tower started screaming off
like we hooked a train going the other way. It was a Blue Marlin. It
jumped from the water and peeled off line at full speed. When it was
all said and done and the Hawk had the fight of his life, we brought
him to the boat.
The snapswivel popped open when the mate had the leader in his hand,
then I jumped in to put the loop of the leader back onto the snap
clip, all while the Marlin was thrashing into the side of the boat.
The pressure was on! At the exact moment I got the snap closed the
mate, who was trying to unhook the fish , pulled the hook and
released the fish and the plug/hook snagged the monster in the side
and he took off again, peeling off 150 feet in seconds. The Hawk
caught him twice. He did jump clean out of the water 10 feet high
only 15 feet from the boat, but it was just madness.
We fed the whole town with Tuna and Dorado. Everyone in Playa
Zancudo now knows The Hawk.
Enjoy the photos
Capt Sloan
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Fishing Report January, 2008
Fishing has been fantastic the last few weeks. We have been raising blue Marlin daily with two black marlin mixed in the 350lb-400lb range. Most boats are raising 4-5 sails daily and are catching 4-6 Dorado's per day up to 50lb.
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Fishing Report December 10, 2007
We had a group in from Miami and had 7 boats for the past four days.
I was only able to get the pictures from one of the boats. The past
few days have been a little slow with the blue water pushing out. I
checked Terri fin and a few boats made the 35 mile run to blue water
with mixed results 5-6 sails a day and a few Marlin raised.
On the other hand the inshore action has been wide open. Yesterday
one of the boats caught 3 roosters a bunch of Jacks and a few
snappers. Today one of the boats had wide open roosters with mutable
double hookups. They ended the day with 15 roosters the biggest
being 52lb.
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Fishing Report December 01, 2007
George Gray of Fairfax was down to the lodge for 5 days of
fishing. Fishing was so good he decided to stay an extra day. George
caught Dorado daily with a few sailfish and marlin mixed in. He
quickly earned the nick name of Dorado George. His biggest was in
the 35lb range.
On day three he fished with James Kohl of the Silver King Lodge.
After a few hours of trolling and 2 dorado's Ablio his captain found
a huge school of spinners with a big tuna under them. They managed
two Yellow fin in the 60lb range. On Georges last day of fishing
they were able to locate the spinners again and hooked up with big
tuna estimated to be at least 200lb but the rod broke and the fish
was lost. He still managed to catch a nice 50lb Yellow fin. Fishing
in on so give me a call at the lodge if you want to come down and
catch some fish.
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Fishing Report November 24, 2007
Our trip started at Banana Bay Marina where we enjoyed cocktails
before taking a 20-minute boat ride to Zancudo Lodge.
There, the new owner, Gregg Mufson, and Lodge manager, Stefan, as
well as the rest of the staff welcomed us. The Zancudo Lodge is
all-inclusive and the meals are bountiful and well prepared. Each
night we dined on fresh fish with tasty accompaniments. Packed
lunches included sandwiches made with deliciously fresh bread; the
breakfast at the lodge was truly amazing with the best bacon I ever
had—this was terrific, since our fishing day began with a 5:30 A.M.
wake-up call.
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On Sunday, in the midst of the four-day fishing event, we took a boat tour up the river from the lodge and saw not only wildlife we had already seen, but also viewed crocodiles minding their own business while the locals fished for freshwater shrimp. The Robinsons took a one and one-half hour car ride to the Panama border for an afternoon of shopping and sightseeing.
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The final fish count for the four-day, twelve-angler tournament totaled 66 fish: 2 Blue Marlin;12 Sailfish;1 Striped Marlin; 8 Dorado; 13 Rooster Fish; 3 Sharks; 2 Tuna; and 25 other fish. Top Angler: Cori Frankenfield with 5 Sail Fish; 2nd Place: Dave Frankenfield, 1 Blue Marlin, 1 Striped Marlin, 1 Sailfish, 3 Dorado, and 1 Shark. 3rd place went to Dave Powell with 6 fish, including 3 Sailfish.
Fishing Report August 28, 2007
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Fishing Report February, 2008