Trout, Tarpon, and Other Critters in Costa Rica, with Kevin Jackson
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. Have you ever wondered what it's like fly fishing in Costa Rica? Well, I have. I've never been there. I hear it's a wonderful, diverse, fascinating country. And I was really curious about what it would be like [00:00:30.300] fly fishing in Costa Rica. I know they have saltwater fishing. And what I didn't know is they also have trout fishing in the mountains. So the diversity of fly fishing in Costa Rica could be anything from trout fishing in the mountains to tarpon fishing to fishing for some other native fish in the jungle rivers there. And so I got a hold of Kevin Jackson of Fly Fishing in Costa Rica, which is an Orvis [00:01:00.320] endorsed outfitter in Costa Rica. And we talk about what it's like. And I'm really interested in going there. And I think you will be too, once you listen to my interview with Kevin. So anyway, that's the main podcast subject today.
Another thing is a tip on a product. Winter's coming, at least in the northern hemisphere, and water's going to get cold. And a [00:01:30.079] lot of us still like to fish in colder water. And there is no better way to fish in cold water than a pair of boot foot waders. When you're wearing boot foot waders, you're more insulated from the water around your foot. Stocking foot waders, you know, you got water closer to your foot, fewer layers between that cold water and your foot. And boot foot waders are so much warmer in the wintertime. And in my opinion, the best way to go are the [00:02:00.019] Orvis Pro Zip boot foot waders. Not only are they incredibly durable. I mean, I can't make these waders leak. Typically, I get maybe a year out of waders before I start to get little pinhole leaks just from wear and tear, because I fish a lot. And I have not been able to make these pro waders, either the boot foot or the stocking foot, leak. So I'm really high on them.
And you know, zippered waders in the wintertime are great. You're going to be drinking a lot [00:02:30.060] of coffee. It's a lot easier to get rid of that coffee if you have zippered waders. You don't have to take all your stuff off to answer a call of nature. And you know, you're going to be fishing in bulkier clothing in the wintertime. And those zippered waders are just so much easier to get in and out of. Now, they're not cheap. They're expensive because waterproof zippers are really expensive. And the pro waders are made with [00:03:00.000] expensive materials. That's why they're so durable, but still so light and comfortable. So you're going to spend a lot of money for a pair of waders if you want zippered boot foot waders. But if you're serious about your fly fishing in the wintertime or in cold water in general, they're really worth it. I highly recommend them.
And one more announcement before we get into the Fly Box up. If you want to search any of [00:03:30.159] my podcasts way back to the beginning and find a particular topic, the best place to do it is on the Orvis Learning Center, which is howtoflyfish.orvis.com. That's the only place you can search keywords on a podcast. You can even search keywords from some of the Fly Box questions there. You know, if you get the podcast on Spotify or Apple Music or iTunes, you're not going to be able to search the podcast. [00:04:00.419] You're going to have to scroll down through them and read the descriptions. But on Learning Center, those podcasts are searchable. So that's the best place to go to find answers to some questions in past podcasts.
All right. And if you want to send a question to the Fly Box, you can send it to me at podcast at orvis.com. You can either just put your question in your email or you can attach a voice file. And I've gotten a lot of voice files [00:04:30.220] recently. In fact, I had more than I could use this week. So if you don't hear your question on the air, I've got some saved. And that's always good to have some voice files saved because sometimes they don't have enough of them. So anyway, thank you all for sending in those voice files.
Wade: Hi, Tom. This is Wade from Southeast Idaho. I thought I'd give you a voice file since you've requested some of those lately. I do want to start off by saying I appreciate your honest and [00:05:00.139] direct advice and approach to fly fishing. It's also kind. You have some great advice. I think a lot of influencers or whatever you want to call them out there are kind of catering to what they think people want to hear. And I find your advice very informative and helpful. With that being said, recently when I went out this last week, I ended up fishing with my lake rod. It's a 9 and a half foot, 6 weight. [00:05:30.160] Typically, I fish a 9 foot 5 weight on the rivers that I fish. And I found that I was far more accurate with this 6 weight. So I don't know if that has to do with the line weight. I was fishing a real gold dry line, and it seemed to even delicate flies. It just casted them much better than my 5 weight. I was wondering if you had any experience with that. I'm looking at getting a 9 foot, just a 9 [00:06:00.139] foot instead of 9 and a half foot 6 weight. And also, I know you've answered this before, but I tend to get confused on whether or not I should be switching my drys pattern, color, or size first and how long I should fish one section before I move on to the next. Again, I appreciate all your info. Take care.
Tom: So Wade, I'm not sure why [00:06:30.319] you might have been more accurate with that 9 and a half foot, 6 weight than you were with the 5 weight. You didn't say what model it was or even what brand. So it's tough for me to evaluate that. I suspect maybe you were fishing a bigger fly like a streamer or perhaps a couple of nymphs with an indicator or something. The 6 weight is going to throw those a little bit better just because you have more mass behind it. And that may [00:07:00.120] be why. I don't think, honestly, I don't think if you've got a 9 and a half or a 6, not so sure that you'd need a 9 foot for a 6 unless you really want one. But I think your 6 inches difference is not going to make that much difference. So maybe you don't need that 9 foot for a 6 weight rod. But if you want one, go ahead and get it.
Regarding your second question, I would advise you first, if you're going [00:07:30.060] to switch, if you've got fish that's eating dry flies and you can't get a take, I would first switch both pattern and size. So let's say I'm fishing a size 14 parachute Adams and I'm not getting anything. I would go to a size 16 in a similar dry fly maybe or something different. So maybe go to a size 16 elk hair caddis or a standard Adams [00:08:00.399] or an ant, whatever. But I'd go smaller, and I'd go different. I think color is your last area of concern, particularly on dry flies. Fish can't see the color that much until the fly gets directly overhead or first comes into the fish's window. I'm not so sure that exact color is important. So color would be the last thing that I would choose.
And as far as [00:08:30.259] fishing a dry fly in one spot, it depends. If the fish are not rising and you're just blind fishing or prospecting with a dry fly, I'd give it a half dozen casts in each really good spot and then I'd move on. If the fish are rising and you don't spook them and they continue to rise, I might stay there for an hour or two. I've done that before. So depends on if fish are rising or not. If you're [00:09:00.059] blind fishing, you don't really know if the fish are going to come up for a dry. So if they don't take it in a few casts, I'd move on. I hope that helps.
All right. Let's go back to an email. First one is from Brian. Like many of your listeners, I'd like to thank you for sharing your knowledge on the podcast. I feel like I level up every time I listen to an episode. I'd also like to thank the Orvis Outfitters specialist team for helping me replace a defective fly [00:09:30.080] line with a brand-new line and making the process smooth. Yeah, that Outfitter team is, they are great. They're terrific. And we pride ourselves on our customer service. Brian goes on to say, I've got a couple questions. I have a YouTube channel and posted a video showing an angler trying to snag salmon on the river. We're from Ontario, Canada, and here it is illegal to snag fish. I shared the video on social media platform. Maybe that's my first mistake [00:10:00.259] and got a ton of comments that said as fly fishers, we were just as bad as the snagger because they think we were flossing. We had a nymph set up using an airlock as an indicator and to set our flies depth, we use wooly buggers, white death and egg patterns for our flies. And we see the fish go after our flies aggressively thanks to polarized glasses. First question is, why do most anglers think that fly fishing is flossing? Second, wouldn't center pin or [00:10:30.139] any float angler be in the same boat? From what I know, starting from the bobber float indicator and down to the bait fly, it's all the same setup. The only difference I see is in fly fishing, you just have line management and mend. Would love to know your thoughts.
Well, Brian, first of all, yeah, your first mistake was probably posting on YouTube, but that's another issue. If you post any fishing video on YouTube, you're opening yourself [00:11:00.100] up for criticism and comments. There's a lot of trolls out there and a lot of people who anonymously like to bully other anglers. So yeah, that's your first mistake. Regarding flossing, particularly with Pacific salmon, they don't eat when they come into a river and they're aggressive at first and will chase stuff and grab it, but after a while, they stop doing that once they're in the river a [00:11:30.200] bit. People do floss Pacific salmon when they're nymphing. You keep putting that fly in front of them and eventually it slides through their teeth, and they get caught in the mouth, but they really didn't take the fly. So it happens.
You say that the fish are aggressively moving through your fly. Well, then that's not flossing. But if a fish is just sitting there and you continually cast in front of it and all of a sudden you hook it, [00:12:00.159] you might have flossed it. So it does happen. And flossing, by the way, is just the fish getting the leader caught in their teeth because they're the biggest thing sticking up from the bottom. And if you're fishing in front of them, you're going to get snagged on them eventually. It's just going to happen because they're like a log or a rock. They're the biggest thing sticking up from the bottom and your leader gets caught in their teeth and then it slides up to the fly and you think you hooked them in [00:12:30.080] the mouth. So sometimes, sometimes fly anglers will floss fish, but when they're fresh in the river, yeah, they'll aggressively chase a fly.
Here's an email from Colin. A question for you about dubbing and the purpose behind it. I'm an avid fly tire, but I've never fully understood the purpose of dubbing and what I need to think through when considering adding it to the hook. Does dubbing add any buoyancy or is it just for the body creation of the bug? Do some types of dubbing work [00:13:00.200] better on dry flies than others? What about nymphs? Any insight on the various kinds of dubbing and how they're best used and would be greatly appreciated?
So Colin, yes, dubbing does add buoyancy to a dry fly. I remember when I was a teenager and I was experimenting with different dry flies, I thought, man, thread really looks more like a mayfly body than dubbing does. Dubbing's kind [00:13:30.019] of fuzzy and mayfly bodies are smooth. So I tied a bunch of flies with thread bodies and of course you got to taper a little bit and add more thread to get the shape of a mayfly, or a caddisfly body and I found they didn't float that well because dubbing does two things. One is that the tiny little fibers in dubbing trap air bubbles and help the fly float and the other reason is that dubbing holds fly floating [00:14:00.120] better and so your flies tied with dubbing are going to be more buoyant, not more buoyant than foam or deer hair, but more buoyant than just a thread or a tinsel body that doesn't hold those air bubbles. And dubbing, because it traps air bubbles may make your dry fly look more like an emerger which sometimes develop air bubbles when they're emerging from their case. And [00:14:30.159] regarding the type of dubbing in general, the finer fibered dubbing is often better than coarser dubbing for dry flies. It just allows you to create a taper easier, looks more like a mayfly body. And so the finer fiber dubbing I think are better for dry flies. Things like the ultra-fine dubbing, ultra fine or super [00:15:00.179] fine, whatever, synthetic dubbings I find are very good. And also, fine fur from water animals such as mink, muskrat, and you know people say that you want to use fur from water animals because they're naturally water repellent. Well, the problem is usually when you get a piece of fur it's been tanned and cleaned and that removes all those oils. But the fur still seems to be naturally water repellent. Now there's [00:15:30.399] one exception to that which kind of disproves what I just told you. Hare's ear dubbing is really good for dry flies. But hare's ear has all kinds of little, tiny fibers sticking out of it and holds a lot more air bubbles because there's more surface area. And I think that you know hare's ear squirrel dubbing with the guard hairs left in floats a fly very well. I don't think synthetic dubbings with the spikier fibers like ice dub [00:16:00.080] or something floats a fly very well. Although we use it, and, you know, with a good fly floating, you can make almost any kind of dubbing keep a dry fly buoyant. So you know use what you think looks great, but I would advise you to use some sort of dubbing on your dry flies for the most part.
Here's an email from Ron. First thank you for the great podcast with Robert Ketley on the secrets to tying good fishing knots. I've done my fair share of internet searches looking for the holy grail on [00:16:30.139] the best knots. This podcast really hit home for me. Learned to tie a few knots well. I started with the improved clinch 40 plus years ago. I've simplified it to just the basic clinch based on your input. I did sense in the podcast that the Orvis knot may have a higher breaking strength so I'm now using the orvus knot on my tippet ring and clinch to the fly. This seems to work well recently on the bighorn. Lost a few but saved my overall rig. Second thank you for participating in [00:17:00.120] the recent video produced by Conservation Hawks. This short video encourages us to find our voices on climate change.
As an individual voice we may feel insignificant but collectively we can make a difference. The most important thing we can do is talk about climate change. Politicians do not create political will. They respond to it. We can amplify our voices through many different nonprofits focused on climate policy. This includes organizations such as Trout Unlimited and [00:17:30.680] the Citizens Climate Lobby where ordinary people across the U.S. come together in a bipartisan environment to lobby members of Congress for durable climate policies. It's past time to act. Later is too late. Tom thank you for speaking up and encouraging your fellow anglers to follow suit. Well thank you very much Ron. Really appreciate that nice note.
Sam: Hey, Tom this is Sam calling from southern Maine. I have two questions and a suggestion [00:18:00.440] for some listeners. First question is do you have any tips for taking good care of large saltwater streamers? You know mackerel, bunker, 8 inch flies, stuff like that. A lot of times I'll fish them and then I'll put them wherever on the dash of my car or something and they'll maybe get a little like curve in them. And when I go to fish them usually they look all right in the water but occasionally they look a little weird. So I'm curious what your suggestions are there. I've seen people have those [00:18:30.599] Fly Boxes to hang large like beast flies and Popovic style flies from. So curious if you've used those or if there's merit to those.
Question number two I do mostly solo fishing from the shore maybe wading in a flat something like that. I see flats boats sometimes and obviously they're very sexy and I want one but can't afford one. But even if I could I do most of my [00:19:00.339] fishing alone solo and I just think about like practically is it even, would it even, you know, be practical to fish a flats boat solo. I can picture like someone pulling from the platform maybe having a rod up there with them seeing a fish putting the pole down. I don't know. It doesn't seem very practical. I'm sorry just curious if you know of anyone who does fish flats boats solo or maybe if they can't find a [00:19:30.039] buddy to fish with them that day they just go out and wade.
Anyway, suggestion I'm trying to keep this kind of short also I can ramble. This suggestion is not my own suggestion. It came from the Classic Fly Rod Forum which is a great place for anyone listening if you're interested in vintage tackle. But if you're worried about getting some damage on your vintage gear when you're fishing from a canoe gunnels and things [00:20:00.079] can be hard on the finish on bamboo rods and stuff like that. So they suggested to use a pack basket and you put it behind the seat and then when you're switching spots or going you know from one spot to another in the canoe put your rod down and put it reel down in the pack basket and that'll help extend the life of some of your vintage tackle or even your new stuff, too. If you just are worried about like dinging up that new reel you got. [00:20:30.460] Anyway that's all I got, Tom. Thanks for everything. Look forward to hopefully getting an answer here.
Tom: Now Sam in the old days, older days, I used to put my saltwater streamers in little poly bags, long, skinny poly bags and then I'd stack them up in a Fly Box. It kept them really neat, and it worked really well. It's kind of a pain but you know to put them all in those [00:21:00.000] little poly bags but it worked pretty well. I've tried to limit my use of plastics these days, so I don't do that anymore and just you know put them in a normal Fly Box. If the feathers on your big flies do get curved and that bothers you, there's a really good way to fix that. Steam them take them home and hold them in steam and those feathers will come back to their natural shape. Now you can do with a tea kettle, but I found [00:21:30.240] that sometimes that gets too hot, and it can actually burn the feathers. I've made that mistake a few times. Best way I found to do it is to buy an inexpensive travel steamer. You can get them online for fairly low price and use a steamer. Use a little travel steamer and that will get your flies back into shape. Whether they're streamers or dry flies or even bass flies it'll put them back into shape.
Regarding solo [00:22:00.400] fishing from shore. I've seen people use flats boats solo and it requires a way of holding the flats boats steady. Maybe a power pole or some sort of anchor system because you got to stop but if there's not a lot of current and not a lot of wind you can stop a flats boat and get on the bow and fish. I have seen people cast from a pulling platform but it's a little high and [00:22:30.079] the hooking angle is a little tough from a pulling platform plus it's a little bit tough to balance. You can do it and if you want to get out further in the water maybe, and if you're going to go solo, maybe a less expensive solution would be to use a either a stand-up paddleboard if it's calm or a kayak that you can stand up in. Sight fishing from a kayak that you can't stand up on is quite difficult and I wouldn't fish [00:23:00.000] from a kayak that you can't stand up in. But if you got a good stable kayak or canoe that you can stand up in canoe without riggers that'll work pretty well. I have both a canoe that I put out riggers on and I have a old town autopilot 120 which is a very, very stable kayak so that's another option instead of a flats boat. You can't get places as fast as you can a flats boat but you know if you got a place [00:23:30.000] to launch near where you're going to fish it works pretty well. And that's a great suggestion using a pack basket behind your seat. I have a lot of pack baskets because I'm a forager and wild mushroom hunter. And so I think the next time I go out my kayak I'm going to take my pack basket with me to stick my rod in.
All right another email this one's from Patrick from Lubbock Texas. Thank you for over 15 years of education and inspiration. [00:24:00.500] I need your advice. My grandfather died in 1944 and his fly fishing gear has remained unopened in a big metal box until now. I want to fish with it not just assemble it and look at it. Is there a high chance I will break the rod on small trout or while casting? The rod is a two-piece cane with extra tip section made in 1931. The fly line is a heavy braided brown cord. The lead is our braided silkworm gut in their original packaging [00:24:30.099] from Hardy Brothers in England. The flies are retro indeed and I suspect they won't hold up long but that's okay. I also have the original Mucilin line dressing and original dry fly dressing. The rod looks to be in good shape. Am I crazy?
My second question is around the fantastic looking bamboo Superfine rod currently on offer at Orvis. I've always wanted a bamboo rod especially because I can actually use it on the small streams I fish in New Mexico. [00:25:00.319] My best rod is a 2007 Orvis 5 weight that predates the Helios series so I've not been spoiled by the super new technology but would like to be someday. What type of performance might I expect out of the bamboo superfine rod?
Well Patrick, first of all, in that old bamboo rod, take a look at it and it most likely would have been varnished because they didn't have impregnation in those days, and they didn't have really good waterproof [00:25:30.460] glues like we do now. So if the rod looks to be in good shape, if there aren't a lot of cracks in the varnish that'll allow moisture to get in there, then I'd go ahead and fish it. If it breaks you can hang it over the mantle, and it'll still be a treasure, but those rods were meant to be fished, and I would try it out. Probably have to figure out what line size goes on it but you can take it to a fly shop and cast it with [00:26:00.099] a bunch of lines and try it out. Now that old heavy braided brown cord is probably a silk line because it's prior to the days where nylon was commonly used, nylon and other synthetics. It was silk, it's probably rotted, it's probably not going to be very good. It's going to need to be dressed and honestly, I would take the line and the leader and maybe the flies and just [00:26:30.200] put them in a shadow box or keep them somewhere where you can look at them. Those silkworm gut leaders are for sure not going to work very well. It's a natural product and they needed to be soaked. They were very stiff and brittle if they weren't soaked. And I have a couple of old gut leaders but I just kept them in their original package and they're sitting on my bookshelf. I think that's the best place for [00:27:00.099] those. So I would use the rod, put a modern fly line on it, put a modern nylon leader on it and the flies are probably in good shape actually. Flies can last a long time. They don't really deteriorate if insects and moths haven't gotten to them. The hooks probably aren't as good as we have these days but you know I'd fish a couple of flies but I'd also keep some of them again to put on your bookshelf or on your mantle or something like that.
Regarding [00:27:30.519] the Superfine rod. Well, I have to admit a bias on this rod because I worked with Sean Brilliant, the bamboo rod maker, to design and develop this rod. I wanted a 3 weight bamboo rod. I thought a 3 weight bamboo rod would be perfect for small stream fishing. Some of the bamboo rods these days have gotten pretty fast and they're more [00:28:00.039] almost like a graphite taper. They're stiffer and they're quite faster. This 3 weight is a little more full flexing and it's what I believe a 3 weight rod should be, and I just honestly just love this rod. I fish it a lot in small streams. It flexes really well with a small trout. It delivers fairly large dry flies and I even fish dry dropper with it but it's really delicate with [00:28:30.079] small dries. I love the rod but again I'm biased because it's the rod that I wanted. And so you can take that with a grain of salt, but I think it's a great rod and I think it's perfect for small stream fishing what you plan on doing with it.
Here's an email from Brian from Northwest North Carolina. And this is a question that I got from a number of people on the [00:29:00.099] Fly Box this week understandably. I'll read Brian's letter. I'm sitting here writing this after a week with no power. Fortunately, I am higher up, so I survived the storm with just driveway damage and I'm extremely grateful for what I have. Meanwhile doing all I can to help my friends and neighbors in this time of need. One might wonder why I'm thinking about fishing but it's important to take care of your mental health in a time like this. I'm thinking of traveling north somewhere for a few days to get [00:29:30.119] some fishing in and distract myself since our season is gone here. I'm wondering what the impacts of our fishery will be. How long will it take to recover? I was watching the geological surveys and before it stopped transmitting data the Wataga River reached 32,000 cfs. What happens to the trout population when water reaches these levels? I'm also wondering how will this impact our native brook trout species that thrive in our smaller remote mountain streams. [00:30:00.720] I believe most of the hatcheries were destroyed so I can only imagine this is going to impact the delayed harvest areas for a long time. In a situation like this would other states possibly assist? Thanks, Tom, for all you do and for all of us for conservation and I appreciate it if everyone keeps all of us in Appalachia in your thoughts and prayers all the best.
Well, Brian, thank you for that and our hearts go out to the people in North Carolina. [00:30:30.319] I was blown away by the devastation there and I hope that people get their lives back in order as quickly as possible. It's going to take a long time. The trout streams, who knows what's going to happen with the trout streams after these floods. I mean where you had rocks rolling and debris and household pieces floating down the [00:31:00.000] river is probably going to affect the trout population for a while. Where people had to put machines in the river, bulldozers and so on, that's going to affect the habitat and it's going to be a while before those rivers heal. The natural habitat that trout prefer is just going to be gone and unfortunately probably there's going to be a lot of inclination [00:31:30.099] to bulldoze those streams to make them straighter and of course that's the worst thing you could do to a trout stream but unfortunately that's what happens often after a flood. And a lot of berms get built which only increases the velocity of the water downstream in the next flood. That's another story.
That being said, trout are pretty resilient creatures, believe it or not. In your wild trout streams up in the mountains, your wild brook trout streams, they probably [00:32:00.160] didn't have as much of a flood as the rivers lower down in the valley just because they don't have a big floodplain. And brook trout don't live very long. Some of them will survive and they have a short lifespan, maybe three or four years. I would expect that you would see those high mountain brook trout streams come back fairly quickly, believe it or not. We had a devastating hurricane Irene here about 15 [00:32:30.359] years ago in Vermont. And I looked at some of the small mountain brook trout streams that got devastated and I thought, oh boy, I'm not going to be able to fish this stream in my lifetime. Within a couple of years, they came back to what they were before the flood. However, the areas where they bulldozed didn't come back as well because the habitat was gone. If you're high in the mountains and you had flood damage, [00:33:01.799] that's going to heal pretty quickly. Down low in the valley, long roads where they had to rebuild the roads, it's going to take longer. No one knows. Yes, probably other states will be able to assist in, I don't know for sure, but other states should be able to assist in restoring your hatchery populations. States often exchange fish between [00:33:30.059] states. Hopefully, your hatcheries will get back online, but your wild trout populations, they're going to bounce back pretty quickly. Again, trout are pretty resilient as long as... And some of them will have survived. They tuck in behind boulders and close to the bottom where the velocity is not as bad. As long as rocks didn't grind over [00:34:00.180] the top of the fish, in some cases, that happened. Some of them will tuck out of the way and survive, and then they'll reproduce, and your populations will come back. It's going to be a while for some areas. Some areas may come back within a year or two.
Here's an email from Mark in Park City, Utah. Tom, thanks for all the effort you put into your podcast. I've learned a lot. I'm interested in fishing bamboo, [00:34:30.059] but I'm not ready to commit to a big dog Orvis rod. Are vintage Orvis rods reliable fishing, tool? Are there any areas I should avoid? Do you fish bamboo? Do you have any advice on where to start educating myself? Thanks for your help.
Well, Mark, older Orvis bamboo rods are pretty reliable. A lot of them were made, so they're not that expensive. Bamboo rods that were made by an individual rod maker and are quite rare [00:35:00.159] are pretty expensive, but you can get a used or older vintage Orvis bamboo rod for a pretty good price online. You just need to search for it. I wouldn't avoid any eras. Anything made after, say, the mid-1950s is probably going to be in pretty good shape. They're very, very durable because in those days they started using better glues. They didn't have to varnish the rods. Some of the rods were [00:35:30.260] impregnated with Bakelite resin to preserve the integrity of the bamboo rod. These days we don't impregnate bamboo rods. We don't have to anymore because the glue used in the newer bamboo rods is so good that you don't need to impregnate or varnish the rods to protect the glue joints. So yeah, 1960s, 1970s, '80s, '90s Orvis bamboo rod is going to be a good deal [00:36:00.199] and in good shape. So there are a number of places online you can go for advice. The Classic Fly Rod Forum, the Bamboo Rod Room. There are a number of forums online where people will help you out and make suggestions. So I would do a little search on it and do some research, ask people questions. North American Fly Fishing Forum has [00:36:30.679] a bamboo rod area. So do a little research and you'll be able to find a pretty good bamboo rod at a pretty good price.
Here's an email from Michael. From somewhere a few years ago I got the idea to ask my dentist for some of the files he used for a root canal. Maybe even from one of mine, I don't know, to use to clean the hook eyes, I've had so many. After hearing about what hook eyes look like at high magnification, [00:37:00.530] I'm wondering if running a file through them is such a good idea after all.
Yeah Michael, I don't, I actually don't think a file of any type is a good idea to put into the eye of a fly because you're going to score, there's a chance of scoring that eye and then it's going to score your tippet, and your knots aren't going to hold very well. Generally, what, you know, most good fly fishing snips have a [00:37:30.000] little pin on them and it's polished so you can poke the head cement or epoxy out of the eye without scoring the eye. If worse comes to worse, what I've often done on the river is just use the hook point from a bigger fly like a big streamer to poke the eyes of flies. So, you know, or even just a needle or a pin will work, but those are polished and those are going to be better than a file so I would avoid using a file on [00:38:00.460] the eyes. Just use some sort of smooth polished point to clear the eyes of other flies.
Braden: Hey, Tom. Braden from Tennessee here. Thanks for the great podcast. Quick question, my brother and I were out earlier today fishing a local river. It's a deeper river, kind of slow flowing. A great river for streamers and that's what we were using. We had the same setup, same streamers, all of willy buggers. The only difference [00:38:30.059] was I was catching tons, and my brother wasn't. We couldn't really figure out why, but I had posed the question that maybe it was the way I was stripping my streamer back. So here's how I was doing it. I would cast the streamer 12:00 right out in front of me perpendicular to the flow of the river but instead of immediately stripping the streamer back I would wait probably 10 to 15 seconds until the streamer flowed down the river a bit to about my [00:39:00.159] 2:00 and then I would strip the streamer back. And it seemed like every time I did that, I caught a trout. So my question is why does that retrieve seem so enticing to the trout? Was it because I was just letting the streamer sink further down in the water and get deeper or was it something to do with the way the streamer looked on my [00:39:30.019] retrieve as it was swinging through the water? I'm still very much a novice at fly fishing. I've only been doing it a couple years. So I would appreciate if you could shed some light on this question. Thank you.
Tom: So Braden, I think that the way you fish a streamer is far more important than the exact pattern you're using. Fish are going to eat a streamer. They're generally predators that are out looking for something to eat. And, yeah, maybe you can imitate a [00:40:00.280] certain color of crayfish or minnow but if they're out there hunting for stuff like that, they're not going to be as picky as they would with a dry fly. So I think the fact that you were fishing or you're letting your fly sink, it got a little deeper and also the angle of that which you were retrieving the fly to the current was probably different from your brother. So I think that's why it worked. Your fly got a little [00:40:30.039] deeper and it was swimming in a different orientation to the current than his was. I know that typically when I fish from a drift boat I'm always in the back in the stern because when I fish from a drift boat I'm usually on a hosted trip with a guest and I like to put them in the bow seat. And we're usually fishing dry flies or nymphs. And they get the first crack at the best [00:41:00.000] water and I sit in the stern and take seconds on most of the water.
But when fishing a streamer, I find that I often do better. We don't fish streamers that often from a boat but when we do, I like to throw it downstream of the boat and then have the streamer swimming downstream as opposed to swimming upstream because I believe that [00:41:30.099] when a baitfish or a crayfish gets pushed into the current it can't swim upstream. If it does to get away, it's just going to hold in place and it's going to be a lot easier prey. Whereas a baitfish or a crayfish, they're going to swim downstream because it's the only way they can get away quicker. So I think that a streamer swimming downstream along the bank or even in the middle of the river is a more realistic presentation. [00:42:00.760] So yeah, I think it I think it matters a lot the orientation of your fly in the water, and I think that's why you did better than your brother even though you're using the same pattern.
All right that is the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to Kevin Jackson of Fly Fishing Costa Rica. Well, my guest today is Kevin Jackson. And Kevin runs an outfitting service in Costa Rica, [00:42:30.199] a newly Orvis endorsed outfitting service. Kevin what's the official name of your outfitting service?
Kevin: Our outfitter is called Fly Fishing Costa Rica.
Tom: That's a good name.
Kevin: It's pretty straightforward and to the point.
Tom: Yeah, that's a good name. So before we get into what you do there and what your jungle fishing is like tell me how you got there in Costa Rica because I don't think you're a native Costa Rican.
Kevin: [00:43:00.179] No, no, no. My accent is pretty good for... I don't have the full Spanish accent, let's put it that way. But basically Fly Fishing Costa Rica is run by my partner Tom Enderlin and I. And originally, Tom's wife is Costa Rican and he moved down here I guess now about 14 years ago. And I used to come down to Costa Rica and fish with him and we always kind of like joked about, you [00:43:30.059] know, "Hey," Tom would say, "Hey, you know, if I have enough work someday you should come down here and maybe work with me. You know, it sounded kind of like a like a pipe dream type of thing, but in 2016, he contacted me and said, "You know, I think that I have enough work. I think we can make this happen." And I had a fantastic job in the United States. My background is fisheries biology. So I worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service doing research projects with commercial fishermen up [00:44:00.000] in New England. Didn't really want to leave that job, but I kind of decided, you know, I didn't want to be retired someday on a rocking chair on a porch and kind of thinking what if. What if I had done that? You know, you can always go somewhere and fail, and just come back. But sometimes you only get one chance to try and chase those dreams. So I moved down here in 2017, and yeah, stuck around. Thankfully, you know, the company made it through the pandemic and everything when tourism completely shut down [00:44:30.199] here in Costa Rica. But we made it through and tourism is booming back in Costa Rica. I mean, it is truly, like, we are absolutely full of people. The airports are full and everyone's coming in. It's been a really good time, so...
Tom: Now, Costa Rica is as I understand it, I've never been there, but as I understand it's one of if not the most stable safest countries in Central America.
Kevin: Yeah. I mean [00:45:00.000] it's pretty much famous for that. And while there are plenty other areas of Central America that are safe, that are, you know, easy to get to. You know, Costa Rica as a whole is very, very safe and is very popular for that. It's because our main business here is tourism. Like, tourism is the number one thing that we have here. I mean about 6 million people live in Costa Rica, but we get over 3 million tourists every year. So as a result, [00:45:30.059] you know, the country is heavily focused on safety. It's easy to get to from major airports the United States and Europe. And as a result, yeah, I mean English is widely spoken It's easy to get around. And the beautiful thing about Costa Rica is that it's small so that there's...you can get and see a whole bunch of different parts of the country in a relatively short period of time.
Tom: And Costa Rica has always been really up on conserving its natural [00:46:00.099] resources, right? I mean you read about...
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom: ...you know, there's a lot going on.
Kevin: We have an amazing national park system.
Tom: So let's first talk about the fishing because that's what my audience wants to hear about. So tell me about the kind of fishing that you guys do down there and what kind of tackle you use and, you know, just give me, because I've never been there, so give me a flavor of what it's like.
Kevin: Well, that is an absolute [00:46:30.780] rabbit's hole that we can go down there.
Tom: That's fine. We like rabbit's holes.
Kevin: Because what I like to say is the best thing that you have with Costa Rica is diversity because the fact that you know you've got your Caribbean coast, you've got your Pacific coast, you've got your high-altitude mountains, and then you've got your lowland rainforest. There's so many different types of fish in the country that one can target in a week or two weeks. So I mean if we wanted to start, like, let's start with the really [00:47:00.280] little stuff. So one of the things that not many people know is that Costa Rica has an amazing wild rainbow trout population, not native obviously, but wild. The story behind the rainbow trout is that after the construction of the Panama Canal there are people from the United States living in the mountains down there in Panama and they saw these beautiful clean pristine mountain rivers that were cold but had nothing in them. And [00:47:30.199] they said, "Well, you know, this seems like an amazing spot for trout." And being that laws, and etc., and introducing species was a little bit different back then they had rainbow trout shipped in from California, in particular, the Mount Shasta, the chem loops, and the cloud streams of rainbow trout. One of the earliest records I have of this is a journal article from 1935 from a freshwater fisheries biologist who went down to Panama and reported finding these, [00:48:00.099] you know, 10, 15, 20 pound rainbow trout moving along the rivers there.
Now because these high-altitude mountain communities of central America traditionally are protein deficient. They can grow a lot of vegetables, but they have a tougher time getting protein these fish are incredibly popular, so they spread like wildfire throughout Canada and arrived in Costa Rica in probably 1950s or '60s. And now, in the mountain sections of Costa Rica, most restaurants will have like a little pond out back where they can have rainbow trout growing to serve in the [00:48:30.119] restaurant. And of course, over years, you know, there's been escapees and some of the rivers in Costa Rica have fantastic rainbow trout fishing. In terms of the tackle, we use there, it's your standard 3 to 5 weight setup. We're using like a hopper dropper or a tight laying rig. We're an indicator in some of the deeper pools. But the fishing can be really, really, really good and I like it a lot for kids and for beginners as well as experts. But yeah, I take a lot of people fishing who are sometimes you know [00:49:00.239] 7 years old like a pair of kids who are 7 years old and by the end of the day they've caught like 10 trout and they're absolutely, they're stoked. They've had a wonderful, wonderful time. And if you're a higher-class trout angler, you know, you have a higher skill level, there's some spots that are pretty technical to fish especially with a long-distance indicator rig and trying to present a fly right in the right spot. But it can be rewarding. They're not all little fish. And the biggest trout that I personally pulled out of the river was 20 [00:49:30.340] inches. And I've seen a picture of a fish that was probably more than a 24 inch class range. So while the majority are smaller, there are some big ones in there.
Tom: Well, just to catch any wild rainbow in Costa Rica would be a pretty cool thing to do.
Kevin: Yeah, it's one of those little hidden secrets. Most people are like, "Trout in Costa Rica. What?"
Tom: How far do you have to drive to get to the trout fishing from where you are?
Kevin: From the capital of San Jose, which is one of the major hubs [00:50:00.139] of the city, basically there's two points of entry into Costa Rica. There's San Jose and Liberia. So some people fly into the smaller airport up in the northwest part of the country if they're heading to the beaches there, but from the capital, San Jose it's about an hour and a half drive.
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: Yeah, we have plenty of people that do it a day trip, you know, they're staying here in San Jose, give me a call, and I pick them up and drive out there, fish to the day and come back in. Really have them back to their hotel by like 6:00.
Tom: So tell me what [00:50:30.099] else you got there. I'm really intrigued.
Kevin: Well, we might as well move down river. Let's follow that path there. And then, kind of hit to some of the lowland species that you get. So, obviously in this this high-altitude area, you know, you've got rainbow trout and cold water. But what happens when the water gets a little bit too warm for trout? Well, something's got to fill that niche, and we have a whole bunch of different interesting species that live in these lowland areas. Things like the [00:51:00.019] multitude of different cichlids in particular like the guapote which is also known as the rainbow bass. Really, really beautiful cichlid. You know, we call them the lago negro but these beautiful colors, blue, purple greens. Big hunk head on them. Tons of other smaller cichlids that you can catch like the moga or the jaguar guapote. There's that tepe machaca which is this awesome little freshwater mullet that lives in like the [00:51:30.099] fastest part of the river and you can get them on like little topwater flies. Like a panfish popper, like little skating flies and they're a ton of fun. They don't get big. I mean we're still searching for the world record, which needs to be over a pound. We haven't been able to do it yet. But they fight like crazy so they're a ton of fun.
But the big fish and the big one that most people find you know have the most fun within that that area is called the machaca which is [00:52:00.039] a fruit eating relative of the piranha. And so many people have seen, they might think of it like a pacu from South America. The machaca is a little different. A big one's probably around 8 pounds. That's a pretty big one. They get bigger, but majority are gonna be a little bit smaller. But we fish them from a drift boat. And machacas are vegetarians so they eat fruit and seeds. So we have to tie flies that replicate those fruits and seeds. So as a result, you [00:52:30.059] know, wine lovers rejoice because save your wine works and we cut them up into smaller pieces, shave them basically round, mount them on the hook and paint them bright green. And you're going down, floating down this river and basically with a machaca, you have to do what's called the slash cast. You know, forget your size 22 technical dry flight application here. Your job is to make that fly hit the water as hard as possible because you're trying to replicate a seed that's falling from [00:53:00.059] maybe you know 100 feet up in the air. And certain times a year, the machaca staged under certain trees that are fruiting. And it can be an absolute long show. You know, you go by one of these trees and slap the fly in the water and four or five, six plus fish are all jumping out of the water trying to get the fly. It's a lot of fun. They're a really, really awesome fish.
Tom: That sounds awesome. That sounds great.
Kevin: Yeah, and for them, it's all like six to eight weeks. That's the style there just [00:53:30.090] because, you know, you're throwing a big heavy fly. Hard hats are not necessary, but some people like to wear them. You know, be very careful with your angling partner in the boat. You're not going to smack someone with a with a heavy wooden or heavy pork fly. People don't like that too much. But yeah, the machaca is one of those fish that we get a lot of people who contact us, and they might have something else in mind for Costa Rica or what they want to do for fishing. But where they're located, they might be right next to an amazing machaca river. [00:54:00.139] And we tell them like, well, what about machaca? I don't know what that is. I've never heard of that. We convinced them to go on the trip and then they come back, send us an email and they're like, "That was the most amazing thing we've ever done. When can we go again?"
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: And a little plug there. If listeners are interested, you can find actually like a quick little lookup or a quick little example of what machaca fishing is all about. A few years ago, Tom and a [00:54:30.239] company called Tropical Fly Collective produced a short film for the fly fishing film tour that was in the F3T and you can find it online. It's called Machaca, A Botanical Tail. It's available on free streaming online. That shows you exactly what the machaca is.
Tom: I'm going to look at that as soon as we get off.
Kevin: So then machaca, the big one's right there. And then I guess, now let's move to the coast. And if you're doing the pacific [00:55:00.420] side, I mean, that's where, you know, most people when they think of Costa Rica, that's what they're thinking of. They're thinking roosters. They're thinking snapper. They're thinking sailfish. And definitely, we have that on offer. Roosterfish and your inshore species like your cabeta snappers, you know, you're talking 10 weight rods there with a variety of different lines. Sometimes floating but I personally prefer just to pull intermediate depending on the fishery, depending on what you're doing. [00:55:30.159] But then while you can get lucky and catch some of these fish from shore. Really the best way to catch these fish is going to be off the boat. I mean that way you can guarantee that you're going to... Well, guarantees are tough to say but you're going to maximize your chance of getting a fly in front of a fish. A lot of times with the roosters and the snappers we'll be doing a bait and switch. So we might either be casting hookless poppers at rocks with the angler like standing by [00:56:00.059] with the fly ready to, you know, when you get that fish chasing the popper then you can work it close to the boat, 30 feet from the boat, pull the popper out, have the fly drop down at the same time and just strip as fast as humanly possible. Or, you know, we'll troll like live sardines without a hook. And when the roosters come up into the spread, same thing. Put the boat out here, reel that sardine in, pull it out of the water, and put the fly in the roosters [inaudible 00:56:24.036]. So that's the best way to maximize your odds of [00:56:30.099] getting into a rooster.
Unfortunately, we don't have like those long beaches like Mexico where you can go running up and down on four by fours and quads, things like that, chasing the roosters. But hey, you never know. If you want to fish from the shore, sometimes you can get really lucky, and you might be down at the beach and a bait ball of sardines gets pushed in and there's roosters and jacks everywhere within casting distance. So it's the luck of the draw there. And we also have [00:57:00.000] a plenty of other, you know, intro species there. Lots of like I said, lots of jacks, big eye jacks, bluefin trevally. Lots of cool things like that.
And as we work a little bit further offshore, you start to get into, you know, your sailfish, your tuna, your dorado and your blue marlin. And certain types of year can be really, really good for each of those species. Sail fishing is pretty popular here. Same thing there we're doing that sailfish are at least a [00:57:30.039] 13 weight for the giant oversized pink popper. And for marlin, we're talking 16 weight with a reel with, you know, probably 500 plus yards of drag just because those things run like absolutely crazy. And then, once again, a giant oversized pink copper. But certain times, you have the marlin, fishing can be really, really good especially far offshore.
Tom: And you do that, you have a boat that does that for the offshore stuff as well?
Kevin: So we are an outfitter. [00:58:00.039] So one of the things that we like to do is support and empower some of the local fishing operations that are here in Costa Rica. So while Tom and I personally guide plenty of the trips. There are other trips where it's better to have someone go with a captain, that we personally vetted, that we know that they know fly. And we know that they're the best in the country at what they do. So while sometimes, yeah, I'll go on one of those trips to help translate, although captains [00:58:30.300] all speak English. But just to have another, you know, another teaching partner there. Sometimes the anglers will go solo. It depends on what they want to do, on what the angler wants to do in that case.
But marlin are nice to have someone to explain what's going on because marlin, it's the most aggressive topwater eating, all fly fishing. And, you know, a lot of people, they're like, "Why are you fishing a 20 pound tippet for marlin?" You know, it's a 300 pound fish. You're a [00:59:00.460] little crazy there. And the reason is that we need something to be able to break. If a marlin's on a run and your finger gets tied up in the line or something like that you want something to break the lines.
Tom: Yeah. And you don't want to lose a fly line either.
Kevin: Yeah. I think at that point, your fly line might be the least of your worries.
Tom: Yeah. I guess a finger would be worse than a fly line.
Kevin: One's easier to replace. And so [00:59:30.000] yeah, the marlin fishing is something else. It's not cheap, you know? That's another thing is that Costa Rica, for a Central American country, like we said before it's very safe but as a result it's also a little bit more pricey. I think sometimes people come here and they expect the same prices that they would have in like Mexico, right? And you might find someone to take you on a panga for 200 bucks for the day. Whereas here, you know, we're thinking more like United States prices when it comes to getting on these offshore boats. [01:00:00.780] I mean you're receiving it back in quality and comfort but, you know, gas and fuel is not that cheap here. So for those who want to have a true adventure getting offshore can be a really, really good experience.
Tom: So what does it cost roughly for an offshore trip like that? Let's say you want to catch a sailfish.
Kevin: It depends, but I would say that a fair minimum, anywhere I would say at a fair minimum, 800 bucks for the day and that's probably a three-quarter day. But if you want to do a blue marlin like we [01:00:30.440] have to do overnights out there so it ends up being, you know, more expensive because it's a lot of fuel. But it pays off to the point where Tom has been offering for quite a bit a blue marlin school in Costa Rica where if you really want to learn how to catch blue marlin you come here. Jeff Currier came here to get his blue marlin on the fly with Tom and got it because we have some spots offshore where we can raise like 30 plus blue marlin in bed so you're gonna get [01:01:00.019] a lot of shots.
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: But like I said it's a long trip, you know, it's at least one night offshore, possibly two and it costs a lot to get out there. But if you if you're a marlin junkie or if you want to like experience like literally the apex predator of blue water you just have to go.
Tom: Wow. All right.
Kevin: And then, well then, we're missing the one big one. That's the other one that's pretty popular here because we've done pacific coast but what about Caribbean coast? [01:01:30.559] Like I said, I told you we're going down a little bit of a rabbit hole.
Tom: No, that's fine. That's why we want to hear all you have to offer because it's fascinating.
Kevin: But Caribbean, the main draw over there is going to be tarpon. Tarpon are here in Costa Rica and they're in places you might not expect. So we do fish for tarpon in the ocean, and in particular, we fish for them outside of river mouths. And [01:02:00.679] for me, those are the kind of places you go if you really want to learn how to fight tarpon because I mean the amount of eats that you can get in a day out there is staggering. I mean, I've had 25 plus jumps fish days out there and that's not like that uncommon. Like, if it's on, like, you can have some really, really, really good fishing out there. The issue is that it's more of a drift fishery. So it's not really going to be like you're casting [01:02:30.739] a lot, if at all. Basically, you're setting your flies, you're drifting through the current, and waiting for the eat. And so for some anglers, that's not what they want but some people just want to catch tarpon. And some anglers also have difficulty casting but still want to be able to fight the tarpon. So that can be a great opportunity for people right there.
And there's those river mouth trips, they're an absolute lot of fun. But my personal favorite spot to fish for tarpon in this country is an area that we have is called the [01:03:00.340] Jungle Tarpon Reserve and that's right up in the northern part of the country, really close to the Nicaragua up there. And it's an inland tarpon fishery. So the tarpon actually migrate about 200 kilometers from the river mouths, 200 kilometers of river miles, river kilometers to arrive in this system of flooded lagoons and flooded rivers to feed during our rainy season. So basically, you're fishing in [01:03:30.280] water that is probably smaller than a lot of trout rivers, yet there's fish up to 200 pounds in there.
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: And that's a lot of like you know fishing with intermediate lines, floating lines in the lagoons, really presenting flies in current types of structure. I laugh because we get some anglers from the Keys let's say for example. They're amazing tarpon fishermen but if you ask them to put a fly in a 3 foot circle [01:04:00.420] and have it hit the bank, and if it goes outside that 3 foot circle, it gets stuck in the tree you have to go and get it you ruin the spot. Sometimes those guys have a hard time doing that. The problem is they're used to precision. They're used to I need to put this thing right exactly there. So anglers with a lot of trout experience still have salmon experience like being able to present a flying current mending. Many is a big one reach cast. They do really well here as long as they don't [01:04:30.219] trout set. No trout set.
Tom: Right, I was thinking of that.
Kevin: [inaudible 01:04:34.036] no trout setting.
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: So the jungle tarpon is our major, major program. The season there runs from August until December, and we're currently in our ninth season of running now.
Tom: Now what size do these fish run, these tarpon, these inland tarpon?
Kevin: This season actually, you know, we're in the middle of actually a crazy week. I think they have [01:05:00.179] seven fish leader landed and three fish to hand. It's been a pretty good week out there so far, and, of course, I'm not guiding this week. But we get fish from like 40 pounds up to well over 200. I'd say that our average fish is probably around in the 80 pound class.
Tom: Oh, that's a nice size. That's a great size.
Kevin: At the early start of the season, you get a lot of smaller fish in the river, but now, the big ones are coming in and we get the play with them a little bit more.
Tom: Now do you have [01:05:30.159] spots along the coast where you have the baby tarpon as well? Not really. Not really, like, you know, Mexico, yeah. You can go up there and target those little ones. And I have a lot of clients ask me and they say, "You know, I want to catch little tarpons. I don't wanna mess with the big ones here." And while sometimes, you know, there's definitely been plenty of times in the Jungle Tarpon Reserve where you know we see smaller tarpon. We can present a fly to them and hook them to the smaller tarpon. [01:06:00.099] But there's been plenty of times where you know you're fishing towards the bank where you've seen some smaller tarpon eat and the fly gets. And right at that currency in the main river and then something comes up and eats it that's you know 120, 150 pounds. And you're like, "Oh, hang on. Sorry. Sorry, there's no guarantees."
Yeah, unfortunately we don't have anywhere where we can say this is where we're going to get little tarpon. But you know we can always look for the smaller ones. And I've definitely had a few years ago, I was with one of our captains. [01:06:30.119] We were out there fishing we had a client, and we saw a fish eating and our captain just basically said, "Nope, that one's too big. We're not going to mess with it."
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: It's too big. It's too big. I had one last year that was in probably the 190 class that unfortunately lost eventually. It took the fly line which is now we have a rule coming in that we're doing a bare minimum of 65 pound backing on [01:07:00.059] here because we broke a lot of fish off and back in last year. But a lot of times those big tarpon don't really want to jump like they run a lot, but they're so big, it takes a lot of energy for them to get out of the water. But this fish was just possessed, and it jumped all over the place. We were finally in the process of leadering it, like, you know, have it in shallow waters kind of on its side. Getting ready to leader it, tire it out and be able to grab it. And it just decided to go in one last run. Took all the fly [01:07:30.000] line into the back and did a huge jump right at the end of it and because the drag was sucked down, everything happened so quickly, it popped out the back. But like I said, every year there's some there's an absolute monster that come up.
Tom: Now that must be crazy fighting because I imagine you've got you've got mangroves or trees along there and you've got currents so it must be a rodeo.
Keevin: It's 12 weight territory. I know that the 11 weights are really popular right now for tarpon but here we do a minimum of 12 weights because [01:08:00.380] obviously it's really important for us to fight our tarpon really hard and really fast. It's going to increase their chance of survival. And so there's been plenty of times where I've had to tell an angler like. you know, I'm looking at that fish and he's starting to go into the trees and it's like sock your drag down and haul your rod down to the opposite direction because, yeah, he might pop. There's a chance it might pop off but if he gets in that in that structure, we're definitely going to lose the thing. So some of them [01:08:30.020] use some really dirty tricks that's for sure. But it makes it a lot of fun, you know? It's a very unique place to catch tarpon.
Tom: Now what else do you have along the Caribbean coast? Are there any flats there with permit or...?
Kevin: There's minimal to be honest with you. Like you can catch king mackerel certain times a year out on the boats. There are a couple permit flats but honestly, nothing really that I would say is worth it for the permit angler. You [01:09:00.760] know I've definitely had people come up to me. I was at the Denver show last year and a guy come up to me and he said, "I want to go to Costa Rica because I want to catch bonefish and permit". And I told him, "I think you should go somewhere else because, jokingly, but because it's true you know?" If you want to catch bonefish and permit, you know, there's much better places to go just for that. Go to Bahamas. Go to Mexico. If you want to catch tarpon and just tarpon, there's probably better places to go for that, too. But what Costa Rica has is a lot of different [01:09:30.300] options in a very small area. Like I said, the key word is diversity. You want to see and catch a lot of different things and experience a lot of different microclimates all over the course of a week, this is the spot to go for.
Tom: Now, tell me a little bit more about the wildlife that you see there because, you know, going to Costa Rica, I'm sure that a lot of people go because they want to see the bird life, and monkeys, and things like that. [01:10:00.140] So talk a little bit about what other things you see when you're when you're fishing there.
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. And that's like I said, the key word there is microclimate. Now Mark Twain had a quote he said about the weather in New England, "If you don't like the weather wait five minutes." In Costa Rica, I'd like to say if you don't like the weather go 5 kilometers because we're so mountainous and up and down, you know, it can be pouring rain in one area and then, [01:10:30.039] you know, literally five minutes' drive down the road it's bright and sunny. So as we're going up and down, if you start up in the high mountains, you're going to see things like rainbow trout fish. You're going to see things like the resplendent ketzel. It's like a crow-sized bird, bright green, red, and white with a tail that can sometimes be 3 feet long. Beautiful, beautiful birds up there, hummingbirds as well. And as you go down the life will change and you're going to start seeing different bird like all throughout. Costa Rica is like a huge area for birding.
And [01:11:00.300] in terms of like the other animals and the mammals in particular, there's a lot, a lot of wildlife especially when it comes to some of the cats here. We're very, very lucky especially in the Jungle Tarpon Reserve because it's a biological corridor we have quite a few jaguars. Actually, last season over half of our clients saw jaguars.
Tom: No kidding. Wow.
Kevin: An encounter [01:11:30.439] is the last, you know, like, 20 minutes or more.
Tom: Wow.
Kevin: And obviously, you know, nothing's a guarantee, you never know, but when you're on that river every day and you're going up and down I guarantee you that jaguar is watching you at least two times a day. But if it wants to come out and if it wants to be seen, you'll have a chance to see it. Tom has been working on a camera track project and he's basically charting the wildlife of the Jungle Tarpon Reserve with the goal of protecting [01:12:00.300] it down the line. Getting additional protections put in through the Costa Rica government. And he's identified I believe as of now 14 individual jaguars that some of them are residents that live in that area and some of them use it more as a transitory area if they're going from Nicaragua to points south in Costa Rica or vice versa. But, you know, the Jungle Tarpon Reserve is surrounded on, you know, in long distance areas by agriculture. Pineapple is a big crop in Costa [01:12:30.260] Rica. So these animals need to have forests to hide and also survive. And because the Jungle Tarpon Reserve is still protected, those jaguars use that area as a corridor and we're lucky enough to be able to encounter them.
Tom: That would be the experience of a lifetime for sure.
Kevin: Yeah. No, I don't believe anyone's ever seen a jaguar while fighting a tarpon yet. I don't think that that one has happened yet, but I'm waiting for that, someday it's got to happen. Jumping tarpon [01:13:00.180] with the jaguar in the background. That's the photo I'm looking for. And then that's another funny thing there is a lot of people get worried about going to Central America because of like creepy crawlies, snakes, spiders, things like that. While we do have some venomous snakes in Costa Rica, really the chances of encountering one are really, really slim. Especially if you're staying on the paths and you're not, you know, wandering around in the forest at night. So you know, many times I get people who that's the first thing they ask, "You know, [01:13:30.039] what about the snakes, what about the spiders, what about the scorpions?" And I tell them, "Really, down here, the biggest thing to worry about is the sun." It's having proper sun clothing, wearing lots of sunblock because you know we're much closer to the equator here and the sun is much more intense. Unfortunately, many a vacation ruined in the first two days with someone who, you know, is lobster-fied because they didn't want to put some black on. So if you're afraid of creepy crawlies, don't be. There's really no reason to worry about them.
Tom: [01:14:01.859] Now how about other mammals? What other mammals are you going to see there or might you see?
Kevin: Well, we have four species of monkey in the country. We have the howler monkey which is you know the really famous one that makes that classic rainforest noise. We have spider monkeys which are a little longer and ganglier. And then the white face capuchins which are like the little mischievous ones of the bunch. [01:14:30.199] They're the ones that, you know, kind of will go in and steal things whenever they get chance. They're kind of like little punks you actually see. They actually will chase iguanas. You'll see these iguanas like out from the very end of the trees and the monkeys are stalking them because what they're trying to do is grab the iguana's tail. The iguana will then jump in the river, and they'll drop the tail like lizards can do. And the monkey will eat the tail, you know, like corn on the cob. They're little punks but they're kind of funny. And then in certain parts of the country on the pacific coast there's [01:15:00.439] the squirrel monkey as well. In the Jungle Tarpon Reserve, we have the three species of monkey. We don't have the squirrel monkey. But you know how there's like all the different slams in fishing, the royal slam, the grand slam, etc. At the Jungle Tarpon Reserve, we have what we call the monkey slam and that's if you can see all three species of monkey in the day. The ultimate monkey slam being if they're all in the same tree. It's only happened once that I know of but, yeah.
And then, outside [01:15:30.060] of that, crocodiles in some area. People feel like to come see crocs. Nothing to be worried about as long as you're not swimming in croc waters, but we do have some big ones you can see. Caimans, plenty of those around. And then, a lot of other smaller cats and other mammals like kinkajous, olingos, coatimundi or pizote, as they're called here. In terms of all the cats, you know, there's the ocelot. There's the puma, the margay. [01:16:00.260] Yeah, a lot of different wild things with the jaguar being [inaudible 01:16:04.401]. With the cats, you just have to be really lucky. But every year, there's someone that tells the story like they came to Costa Rica, and they just were driving on the road, and jaguar ran in in front of the car. And then these people have spent 15 years looking for one and haven't seen it.
Tom: That's the way it goes looking for that stuff.
Kevin: Oh, it was funny. So Tom and I, when we saw, both of us we saw our first jaguar was [01:16:30.180] three years ago now. And, you know, of course, we see this. We go around a bend in the river and there's a fallen tree out and there's a jaguar sitting on the end of the tree. As soon as that boat went around the bend the thing did a 180 right back into the forest. And of course, you know, we went straight for that to go climb in the forest and start looking for the thing, of course. What was incredible to me was is on this fallen tree or that was leaning over the river, when we got close to it, the entire underside of [01:17:00.140] the tree was covered in bats. And all the bats flew out as the boat got closer. But that jaguar was on there and was so silent up on the tree coming up and running off it didn't disturb the bats underneath of it. And when we got in the forest, you know, we didn't see it. Of course, the thing had taken off. But Tom was shaking. He was absolutely shaking because he had been waiting about 12 years to finally see one. He had gone to plenty of areas specifically looking for jaguars and never seen one. But now, you know, he's seen quite [01:17:30.199] a few. I saw four last season. You know, it's if you're set up and you really want to see wildlife, that's why I really like the Jungle Tarpon Reserve because as any experienced tarpon fisher will tell you, tarpon are very, very difficult fish at times. They don't do what you would expect. You can have a fantastic day of tarpon fishing. Then, the next day, with completely the same conditions, the river seems dead. So I [01:18:00.100] like the Jungle Tarpon Reserve because there's always something entertaining to do when there's periods of slow fishing. You know, we can stop, we can look for jaguar prints. We can even go check the camera traps and download some of the data off the card and see what was on there. Or just go bird watching, see what we can find. Do that during the points of the day when maybe the fishing isn't that great. And then when we find some fish active, and find a meeting, we rig up the rod and get ready to fish.
Tom: Well, it sounds like an incredible experience.
Kevin: [01:18:31.408] It's a fun one. We will get you down there sometime that's for certain.
Tom: I would like to do that. I would like to do that. All right, Kevin. Well, I want to thank you for sharing what Costa Rica is like because I've always been curious and I'm sure a lot of my listeners have, and it sounds like a place that a lot of us would like to visit.
Tom: Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, that's the beauty of Costa Rica. It's [01:19:00.000] easy to sell the family and it's easy, it's safe to bring the family as well. That's one thing that we really pride ourselves on as well is you know not everyone has the time or the money to go and spend like a week of epic fishing, you know? And not everyone has the vacation time to do that, you know? Some people are just there on vacation with their family and maybe they want to get away for a day of fishing for two days, something like that. And that's what we kind of pride ourselves [01:19:30.359] on is being able to offer a day trip. A day trip to people that might not want to spend or invest the entire week in fishing. So we get a lot of emails from people. They say. "I'm in this area what do you have available?" And we can provide some recommendations and get them on the water.
Additionally, you know we had people that come to us, and they say, "Can you set us up with a week of mixed fishing and eco adventures?" Like, maybe a [inaudible 01:19:58.334] days in a national park focusing [01:20:00.060] on photography. And in between that, maybe two, three days of fishing. Very a la carte like they say developing the trip as they want. The Jungle Tarpon Reserve is the only thing you have, it's kind of like a set trip, everything else is all custom. And you know, we appreciate that and understand that, that people are coming to Costa Rica. And yeah, we just want to get them on the water no matter, whatever the cost. So it's like if you can do a week, fantastic. If you only have one day to go off and go fishing, [01:20:30.260] doesn't matter. Just hit us up and we'll be able to get you on the water.
Tom: That's great. Now the Jungle Tarpon, is that a day trip from...
Kevin: No. That's only a weeklong trip. And that's where we have our partner lodge, you know, it's a fully set up lodge, air conditioning, a pool, you know, beautiful area, on-site restaurant. Literally you walk down the dock, you're right on the river. So it's a two minute walk to get to the boats to where you're fishing all day. Excellent food both for lunch and [01:21:00.119] for dinner. Breakfast is always on the boat. Amazing coffee because it's Costa Rica so [inaudible 01:21:04.835] coffee. But that's more like the lodge experience. So it's a week-long trip. And it's because, you know, tarpon as I said can be picky. And if you only go to do jungle tarpon for one day, you might have the day of your life or you might have an absolutely horrible day.
Tom: That's been my experience with tarpon fishing. I don't want to go for less than four days because I know a couple [01:21:30.020] of them are going to be lousy.
Kevin: Exactly. Over a week, you get to experience the peaks and the valleys. I mean, we all want a week to be nothing but peaks, but the reality is it's going to go up and down. So that's why we only offer jungle tarpon for that week. We do offer another thing that we call the tarpon combo which is where you spend half the week in the river mouth on the Caribbean side fishing there, and then the other half in the jungle. But yeah, that's the way that we do it there. It's for those looking [01:22:00.079] for the lodge experience, if that's what you're familiar with, the Jungle Tarpon Reserve is where you wanna be. You'll [inaudible 01:22:06.310] something.
Tom: All right, Kevin. Well, thank you so much. I hope to see you at one of the shows this year. I know you're coming to the states for a couple of the shows and...
Kevin: We'll definitely be in Denver, and I think we're undecided on the other ones. So we're not sure yet, but we're definitely gonna be in Denver.
Tom: All right, if you're in the Denver area, make sure you stopped into [01:22:30.119] The Fly Fishing Show and stop and talk to Kevin.
Kevin: Yea, look for the booth that's all covered in jungle plants. That's our new thing, so...
Tom: All right, we'll be able to find you.
Kevin: And then if people are looking to find us online, the best way to reach us is by our website or Instagram. So the website is flyfishingcoastarica.com with the best email being info at flyfishingcoastarica.com or on Instagram we're right [01:23:00.180] there, it's just @flyfishingcoastarica.
Tom: Or they can go to the Orvis website and find the link there.
Kevin: Absolutely.
Tom: Because you're an Orvis endorsed outfitter, so they can go right there. We should send them there first, Kevin.
Kevin: Fair enough, fair enough. I think our Instagram's link there, too.
Tom: All right, good. All right, Kevin. I want to thank you so much. Really appreciate talking to you and it was fascinating.
Kevin: No, thank you very much, Tom. I mean this podcast has been [01:23:30.140] an amazing resource for me. When I really got back into fly fishing like 20 years ago, it was a fantastic resource. Long car rides, listening to everything, and just absorbing stuff and questions for all skill levels that people might have. So it's an absolute pleasure and an honor to be able to give back. So thank you very much.
Tom: Well, thank you so much. All right, Kevin. Talk to you soon.
Kevin: All right, Tom.
Tom: Thanks for listening to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast with Tom Rosenbauer. [01:24:00.479] You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at