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The
other thing Matt used to get me down there two weeks early was fishing.
I love to fish, need it, and would probably go insane without it. So
when Matt says there is some killer fish that fights like a pissed-off
bass on steroids - well, we went.
Laguna
Arenal
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The
lake we went to is called Lago Arenal. It is at the base of
Volcan Arenal. Yes, volcan does mean volcano, and it is
active. It was really cool to be fishing and to be able to see
like twenty feet away molten lava flowing red hot into the lake and
throwing up great plunes of steam. Well, that didn't really
happen, but we could here the rumblings, and see lava rocks tumbling
down the side of the volcano with smoke rising up from them.
The lake was already there, but some time ago, the Costa Rican
government damned up some section, and raised the water level an
additional 50 feet or so. There's actually a town under water,
I still haven't figured out how those people breathe down there.
Oh, wait, they probably moved first. Nevermind. The lake
is gorgeous, and at most we saw one other boat, but usually were
alone on the water - a fisherman's dream. |
| Sunrise
over Laguna Arenal |
 |
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| The view at 6am on Lake
Arenal |
The day we got sunburned
as hell... deceiving, isn't it.. |
Our
Fishing Guide Gerardo
| Our
guide was a local named Gerardo, though we just like to think of him
as Don Juan. The dude appeared to have no game, but this man
had quite a reputation. Ask just about any woman in Arenal
about him, and they're like "yeah, I know who he is..."
I'll stop there.
Gerardo had an old, beat up (and I
mean beat up) Toyota jeep that he hauled the boat with. But
wait there's more.
The boat has a trolling motor,
which runs off a battery. Yep, you guessed it. Every
morning, after the boat was in the water, the hood comes up on the
jeep and one of the batteries (The jeep ran with two for some
reason) comes out for the trolling motor. |
 |
| "I'm just a gigolo,
everywhere I go..." |
 |
|
|
| The 16th Century Toyota
Landcruiser |
Our fishing boat |
Even the boat ramp was
scenic |
The
"Big" Haul
 |
Overall, I
wouldn't call our fishing trip a huge success. I should say at
this point, I don't think it was Gerardo's fault, we just went at a
bad time.
That's why it's called fishing, not
catching.
We caught three Guapote (rainbow
bass) and eight Machacas (which is related to the American
shad, only they're really mad about something). The
guapote was the fish we originally wanted to go after, but the
machacas were a lot more fun. They would try to hit top-water
baits so hard that often your lure would fly a foot or two in the
air. This is one of the main reasons we didn't catch more,
they're just hard to hook up.
|
 |
| John and the Guapote |
Matt and a Machaca |
|
No
tenemos suerte con... WHAM!!!
I
wanted to keep throwing top-water since they seemed to want it, but
Gerardo kept insisting we throw spinnerbaits. Matt's throwing and
cranking this spinner bait. He turns to Gerardo and says,
"We're not having any luck with the spinnerba....," and WHAM!,
his rod doubles over and after several intense minutes of fighting, up
comes about a four and half pound machaca - the biggest fish of the trip.
Gerardo,
with a smirk, repeats, "we're not having any luck with the
spinnerbaits."
We
all laughed, then I dropped Gerardo with a boot to the skull for talking
smack to my brother. |
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