Costa Rica - Crocodile Bay Report

First of all apologize me for the delay in opening this thread, since I came back it has been a tad cahotic here and barely had the time to put put the spanish report. I have been to Costa Rica for the third time, my second at Crocodile Bay Lodge in Puerto Jimenez, and again I had a ball. First of all I was there with the Lamiglas guys who I really wanted to fish with to share some of my popping and jigging craze. Then, my friend Mike Laptew was there and I knew it was going to be fun to be with him again. And last but not least, Crazy Alberto, a friend form NY and very talented fisherman was there too, a good chance to finally fish together after quite a while that we know each other.
CBL is still one of the biggset operation I ever been, they have around 30 boats running during the peack season, lots of different vessels for different kind of fishing. Good captains, good mates and good equipment. The lodge itself is quite large with several apartments (max capacity up to 90 people), a good restaurant and excelent bar. The guy who runs the fishing operation is Todd Staley and he really know how to accomodate you at the best, he's avery professional guy.
The fishing for us has been average, and fortunately improved by the days than ks to the change of the moon. We started with some slow offshore action to end up having a quite good jigging time and fun offshore again. My main targets were the Cuberas and Roosters on top water and the Amberjack on the bottom. I managed the latter, plus some good action with the pelagics around the floating debris, very entertaining. It was also a good test for a couple of new jigging rods we have developed with Lamiglas a 5'6" 50lb and a 5'6" monster rated 80lb. To make the test more serious I was using 80lb braid and 30lb of drag on the reel, fi there was a waek spot on the chain that was the time to see it breaking. Eventually the hooks broke, twice. It was the Mustad 10287BLN 11/0, a hook that never gave me any porblem before but eventually this time it failed. One broke and another one opened up in a big Amberjack mouth, now I know that with that kind of set up I need bigger hooks....

To make a long story short, we ended up catching on lures a good bunch of Dorados, small Yellowfin Tunas and a 160lb monster (this one on live bait, 2.50hrs battle on a 30lb rod and 50lb braid), Bonitos, some cuberas and groupers and a bunch of good size Almaco Jacks. Some shots for you....

A good start