That’s Fishin’ – August 2024

Welcome to That’s Fishin for a brief roundup of all things Fishing here in Quepos. What a season it has been so far, a truly EPIC TUNA BITE for most of the year, some of the best Sailfishing we have seen for some years during the early part of the season and some record breaking tournaments with our Pescadora Billfish Championship (ladies only), Pelagic Rockstar and Dorado Derby tournaments reaching new heights in terms of number of boats and prize money!

OFFSHORE FISHING

The main story of the fishing over the past month has been the exceptional Tuna fishing we have experienced. July provided some red hot Tuna fishing, lots of fish in the 10-30lb class but there have been some schools running through with 50-80 pounders and then some with Wicked Tuna sized fish in them, when you see schools of 100-200lb Tuna jumping clean out of the water chasing flying fish, it is a sight to behold and you don’t know whether to grab your camera or your fishing rod!

We have been seeing Sailfish on most Offshore charters but July was relatively slow in Quepos as far as Sailfish are concerned until 18th July when Capt Franklin & Alex on the BIG EYE 2 released 10 Sailfish for a fantastic day on the water, which was great to see. There has been a lot of bait out there which has brought the Tuna in close and hopefully we see a consistent Billfish bite off the back of this. AMYS DREAM caught a stunning Black Marlin around a Tuna school mid July and there have been some Marlin showing here and there. During early July we raised 3 Blue Marlin aboard GOOD DAY in one day which was fantastic to see after a fairly slow run on the Marlin prior to that, so they are definitely out there.

The Wahoo bite has been great over the Offshore Reefs with most fish 15-30lb but some big guys also.

There have been days with plenty of small Dorados at the Offshore debris/weed lines around 8-15 miles out, with a few bigger fish mixed in. Conditions are looking great with 83 degree water temps, plenty of evening rain and debris washing out of the rivers as a result. The Dorado fishing should continue to improve these next couple of months as the seasonal rains intensify before it peaks in November, just in time for the Dorado Derby’s.

The Offshore Marlin FADS/Seamounts have been producing Blue Marlin, Striped Marlin & Sailfish and now is an excellent time to take a multi day trip out to the FADS to target Marlin. Our recent guests went 2 for 6 on Marlin aboard the 42’ TOOSEA during their 2 night/1 Day FAD trip.

Our friends in Guanacaste have been experiencing a truly epic Sailfish bite this past couple of months, as we did here in Quepos earlier in the season. It is great to see such volumes of fish in the area with boats catching double digit Sailfish on a regular basis and certainly helps give us hope for the future of our fishery.

SUMMER SLAM TOURNAMENT

The Summer Slam tournament took place on July 6th which has a super fun Species hunt format where teams set out to catch as many of the qualifying species as possible. Totally different from our highly competitive, big boat focussed Offshore Billfish tournaments, this event is wide open for all to compete and a perfect family friendly event to bring the kids along and fish the event on a small Inshore boat. Team Gollita Zapatas caught an amazing 15 different qualifying species to take the win which is a fantastic result, huge congrats to Capt. Rudy Zapata & team, well deserved! Closely followed by the Hatta Dream Ladies with Capt Roberto Gonzalez catching 11 species and the dazed Texans in third with 9 species, well done guys!

Results – Summer Slam

Gollita Zapatas 15 species
Hatta Dream Ladies 11 species
Dazed Texans on Blue Daze 9 species

Jackpot Winners – Summer Slam

Reel Freedom Heaviest Fish 32.7lb Tuna
Blue Daze Heaviest Dorado 25.2lb
Hatta Dream Ladies Heaviest Grouper 20.6lb, Heaviest Bonito, most Snapper species, most Grouper species

INSHORE FISHING

July produced some solid Roosterfishing when conditions were settled. Aboard GOOD DAY we caught 8 stunning Roosterfish over 2 days fishing with Roosters in the 15-30lb range. Boats IDRA, CAPT SKY & ASI O MAS have been catching some nice Roosterfish also these past few weeks.

Roosterfish can be targeted during full or half day inshore charters from Quepos and August will continue to provide opportunities to catch these fine fish. This time of year is when the large Roosterfish run and catching a 50-90lb Roosterfish from Quepos is most certainly possible. Jacks, Mackerel, Snapper and more can also be caught during these Inshore trips.

Our Bottom fishing in 200-400’ for Grouper, Snapper, Congrio & Tilefish can also be excellent at this time of year and well worth investing some time in. Deep dropping with Squid, Bonito or Cigar Minnow baits is very effective as is Jigging.

We have some great inshore boats available at the Marina to suit all sizes and budgets. If you would like an Inshore trip of your own just drop me or the team at the Marina Pez Vela guest centre a line.

2024 ROOSTERFISH STUDY

During late June we deployed our 3rd Satellite tag of the year into a 36” Roosterfish at the Naranjo rocks area, just south of Quepos. Amazingly just 10 days later we recaptured the same fish in the same location, aboard the same boat GOOD DAY, what are the chances!? The Tag was still intact and the fish was very healthy so we released it with the Sat Tag still intact. We are looking forward to seeing where the Roosterfish travels over the coming 3 months until the Tag pops off. We are also awaiting the results of a further Roosterfish that we tagged in February with a 5 month Sat Tag applied. This was a larger Roosterfish in the 40-45lb range and we deployed the Tag for 5 months instead of the usual 3 month timeframe that we set the Sat Tags to.

We will share full results of the data once we receive it. From previous tags we have deployed we are generally seeing a northern migration of the Roosterfish that we Tag in the Quepos/Dominical areas. Most of them head up to the Nicoya Peninsula area, we assume following the current that way and several tags have popped off in the area close to San Lucas Island in the mouth of the Nicoya Peninsula. Two Tagged Roosterfish last year headed 60-80 miles Offshore way over the continental shelf, behaviour we had not evidenced before. We still have many unanswered questions such as when/if the Roosters travel back south. We deployed a Sat Tag in Drake Bay earlier this year to spread our reach of Sat Tags further but unfortunately we did not get any data on that particular tag. It is a long and costly process but we are committed and have a great team. Huge thanks to MARINA PEZ VELA, GRAY FISHTAG RESEARCH and all of our sponsors for their dedication with our ongoing ROOSTERFISH STUDY as we continue to learn more each year about the migration patterns of this iconic fish.

TOURNAMENT DATES

We are just 3 months away from our first tournaments of the coming season, the Dorado Derby 1 & 2 taking place on 9th & 16th November. Certainly one of our top tournaments of the year and a firm favourite with Quepenos! Team entries are coming in and boats are getting booked up. If you would like to fish this event please get you boat reserved ASAP as boats will almost certainly sell out for this event.

Team SKY & Team TRIP will be looking to defend their crowns from last years events. I have guests coming in from Ireland and New Jersey to fish the event as well as TEAM PEYTONS PIRATES representing the Costa Ballena area, who just love fishing this event.

The main 2025 tournament calendar is now set, you can find our full Marina Pez Vela tournament event schedule at marinapezvela.com/tournaments.

November 9 Dorado Derby 1
November 16 Dorado Derby 2
January 9-12 Pelagic Rockstar
February 1 Roosterfish Rodeo
Feb 20-22 Pescadora (Ladies Only) Billfish Championship
March 8 Sailfish Slam
April 5 Marina Pez Vela Open

See you on the water!

Benn Gilmour
Jackpot Sport Fishing, Marina Pez Vela, Quepos
Cell: 8458 4997
[email protected]
jackpotsportfishing.com