jameyr

Earlier this month, two Orange Beach fishing buddies and I had an opportunity to travel to Playas Del Coco, CR to fish, explore, and relax. We’ve kicked around the idea of an out of area fishing trip before, and with the oil-related closures this summer, we finally pulled the trigger. I still maintain it was a fishing trip that the wives got to come along on. The girls clearly believe it was a vacation on which the guys got to fish. Regardless, we had a ball. Early September is considered the rainy season, and we weren’t disappointed. Every morning dawned partly cloudy, and it rained every afternoon we were there. As a result, the scenery is lush and green.

After a little up-front research and talking with the captain, we settled on Gamefisher II (www.gamefisher2.com) as our top choice. We made our reservation, wired our deposit, and were all set.

On the morning of the trip, the boat made the trip up from Flamingo to pick us up at Coco, and we caught a panga ride off the beach out to the boat.

The boat is a nice looking 31’ custom, twin diesel, Palm Beach style design… a comfortable, well-maintained, no frills fishing machine. After introductions (the Captain Richard Chellimi is from St Augustine, Junior (mate and 2nd captain) and Diego (deckhand) both speak excellent English), the captain warned us that red tide had created nasty water conditions and that we were probably going to have to run a long way to find decent color and fish activity. “Great, we came all the way from S. Alabama where we’re used to so-so bluewater conditions within our small boat’s range, and now…” Anyway, we’re used to long runs so we grabbed an Imperial and settled in.

The coastline is way different than what we’re used to on the Gulf Coast, with mountains seeming to plunge straight into the Pacific, dense foliage covered bluffs interspersed with brown, volcanic sand beaches. The water was as advertised, varying from Mobile Bay green, to Cotton Bayou brown, to Lake Shelby red. Some areas even had a yellow tinge. Ugly to say the least. Sea conditions were a little bumpy but decent, with a 2 foot chop on top of the big Pacific swells.

Our first stop, probably 25 miles out, was on a whole floating tree, one of LOTS of large floating obstacles that would make this area a nightmare in which to run a small boat at night. No dolphin around, but we did feed one hungry needlefish that wrecked a ballyhoo. Next stop was on some floating longline gear. We trolled along it, and then noticed some splashes next to one of the floats, which turned out to be two struggling, ensnared sea turtles. We rolled in our spread, backed down on the offending gear, and Diego quickly released both turtles.




We observed one other vessel offshore all day. From the radio conversation, they stopped short, fished all day in ugly water, and had no action.

As we trolled further offshore, the water gradually cleaned up and improved to what Roff’s would call blended blue. Finally at around 50 miles, the captain announced that we had found the water we were looking for. A few minutes later we had a small mahi porpoising in the spread, nipping at the naked ballyhoo circle hook rig on the shotgun, but no hookup.

A few minutes later, in a matter of 10 seconds or so, there was an excited shout, I turned on the video camera, Diego dropped back a naked ballyhoo on a circle hook on a one of the 30s, Captain yanked the starboard teaser, and a blue marlin crashed through the wake and pounced on the ballyhoo.




He fed the fish for several seconds, locked up and handed off the rod to angler Tim, and the fight was on. The fish stayed on top and put on quite a show, grey-hounding, tail-walking, bill-shaking, and throwing white water everywhere. The captain used the fish’s performance on the surface to close the gap rapidly in forward gear, and only turned to back down in the latter stages. We had the double line on the reel and the leader in hand in less than 10 minutes. As Diego wired the green fish, the captain said he looked tail wrapped. When the fish surged, Diego held on and popped the leader. The last thing we wanted was a longer, deep fight and a dead marlin at the boat, so I’m glad he made that call, though I hate we didn’t get a good boatside pic. The captain estimated it at 200-250 lbs. Tim’s first blue marlin release, on standup, 30 lb gear no less!!! WoooHooo!!!!



With the spread back out in seconds, we quickly raised a sail. I was handed a TLD 25 with a naked ballyhoo and I dropped it back. The fish, with mouth wide open, switched off of the teaser onto the ballyhoo, ate, and swam away. I free-spooled until Junior told me to “lock it up”. I did, the line came tight, and then went slack. Repeated dropbacks didn’t entice a second shot. I missed him, plain and simple. The fact that this professional crew put the rod in my hands and let me do it myself, even if it ended up costing us a 2nd billfish, speaks volumes about them and was a huge part of MY enjoyment of the trip.

Shortly thereafter, we came across a huge school of spinner dolphin, and I mean HUGE. It was acres in size with hundreds of individuals. The crew swapped trolling outfits and all three of us caught yellowfin tuna, with a couple of triple hookups.

By then, it was time for the long ride home. To make us feel really at home, we ran home into ominous clouds, the last 4 or 5 miles in a pouring thunderstorm with frequent cloud to ground lightening. Even our seasoned crew grew a little wide-eyed at some of the louder booms. After arriving back into our cove, we kept enough tuna for the grill and left the rest with the boat, and jumped onto our panga taxi for a quick ride to the beach. Tim got plenty wet from the storm, and we elected to skip the obligatory swim in the interest of getting out of harm’s way.

I can’t say enough good things about the Gamefisher II boat and crew. They are top-notch, highly skilled professional fishermen, awesome to watch in action, yet still easy to be around and actively fish with (instead of us just watching them do all the fishing). They patiently answered all of my many questions as I tried to learn as much as I could for future reference in our home Gulf waters. I honestly believe a lesser boat would have saved fuel and fished us in poor water all day and chalked up the likely poor results to bad water and luck of the draw. That marlin made our whole trip, and the Gamefisher II’s over-and-above approach made that possible. I look forward to hopefully fishing with them again one day… gotta start saving my pennies and Skymiles again.

Sunshine17

Great report. Very nice Marlin. My life long dream to catch one. Congrats.

JointVenture

Great report! Sounds like yall had a hell of a time!!! Congrats to Tim for his first marlin

__________________
'21 Contender

BludogDesigns.com - Affordable, Professional Web Design. Request a quote to unlock your online potential today!

Chris V

Thanks for the report and great pics. Congrats on his first bill

REDFISH KING

Nice pics , Congrats on a good time...

jdhkingfisher

awesome pictures

rcgamefisher2

I enjoyed reading your story almost as much as I enjoyed fishing with you guys. You did forget to mention the part about the outrigger cable breaking on the run out and the team effort it took to change it out in the high seas.
You all are fisherman's fisherman.
Best wishes,
Capt. Richard