Dr. Kelly Huber and her family of North Florida anglers braves some big seas and stormy skies to get a crack at Extreme Panga Fishing. After a very difficult first day on the water, they rebounded nicely with excellent inshore action.
The Good Doctor scored this Bonita early in the trip…hey slow down! We got our sights set on better-eating fish than a Bonita!
For instance,. this Cubera Snapper couldn’t resist the tasty morsel and swallowed the Bonita whole (including the hook):
They followed up with a nice Yellowtail Snapper.
Great perseverance from these Ponte Vedra folks was rewarded with a sack full of filets.
Shannon and Pam Emery followed up their incredible first day of fishing with a monster of a different sort; yesterday they beat up big billfish but today they dropped bait to the bottom and bested this beastly Broomtail Grouper:
Wow! This monster is estimated by the crew to weigh well over 70lbs. That’s a lot of grouper sandwiches for sure!
“This day was planned to do some inshore for rooster, snapper and grouper. The day was almost a bust because of the rain and color of the water. With 15 minutes remaining the crew got me hooked into a big Broomtail Grouper that we got to the boat despite my letting him get back into the rocks.”
Great work by the crew of the mighty Wanderer, the boat that doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “off season”.
Shannon and Pat followed up their Marlin and Sailfish releases with more excitement. Two Sailfish released and a trio of big Dorados on ice for the dinner table.
“The second day was as good as the first with two sails and three Mahi Mahi which made great ceviche.”
Mrs. Emery was all over these Sailfish today as she released this 150lbs. monster, clearly the largest of the week.
Let’s see that picture:
Perfect! Shannon capped off the off-shore Sailfish round-up with this handshake late in the day:
Shannon and Pat Emery joined the Wanderer for three memorable days of fishing. They braved the rainy season to get to Nosara, then waited for a break in the weather to go hunt big billfish.
Thought the tourists are scarce this time of year the big fish are still in the neighborhood…check out this high flying Blue Marlin that was waiting on the Wanderer.
After the Marlin release this dynamic fishing duo took on a swarm of Sailfish.
Shannon put the finishing touch on this great fishing performance by putting a big Yellowfin Tuna in the fishbox. Certainly these two have some excellent dining in their immediate future.
Shannon Emery met us at the St. Pete Boat Show last year and began planning his trip on the only time off he had from work: smack dab in the middle of the rainy season!
Normally we try to persuade clients to avoid September and October, but Shannon’s job is not normal: He is serving the US in Afganistan and this week in the only chance he and Pat could get away.
Here’s a few words from Shannon:
“Just wanted to drop you a note as we are getting ready to depart CR tomorrow morning. First the crew you have here are great. Jenny made sure the house was taken care of and our huge loads of laundry were cleaned and also made sure we had some great chow on the boat.”
“Also the fishing was great. I expected that with it not being the best time for billfishing that we may be lucky getting a sail or two. For day one we passed that with 2 sails. one blue marlin and a very tasty yellowfin. The crew of the Wanderer was awesome and I look forward to fishing again with them. I gave the guys copies of our videos and pics so you guys have them.”
“All in all we had a great stay and some great fishing. Now I just have to figure out how soon we can make it back to this little spot of paradise.”
It’s the rainy season in Nosara during the months of September and October, so this is the time of year when our team reloads for another great season.
Last year the FishingNosara crew obliterated every record on the books for trips run and billfish released, while the staff of Nosara Paradise Rentals established a new high mark with over 500 weeks of rental guests on the books.
The boat crews are hard at work getting the fleet refit for another record-breaking campaign.
The Explorer is the focus of this year’s boat work. With over 400 trips under her belt, the Super panga has outperformed all exceptions. However there are a few rough spots that we hope to address during the next two months.
Captain David and Captain Carlos have already strengthened the soft spots in the floor with fresh fiberglass.
Mate Kevin assisted Captain David in adapting our new outriggers to the existing outrigger bases…funny how new stuff never lines up perfectly with old stuff.
Lastly they rolled the whole Super panga with a fresh coat of white and grey gelcoat, plus added a sweet chair for the Captain.
The flagship Wandererย was thoroughly rebuild last year so she is still good-to-good as the best fishing vessel in the area. However last season in our haste we ran all over our freshly painted interior and left smudges that only a sander could remove. After a complete sand-down the Wanderer‘s interior was rolled with a fresh layer of bright white gelcoat.
This time we left it to cure for several days and the quality of the result is obvious. The exterior blue still looks good, however the local bottom paint has been shy about sticking to the fresh gelcoat from last season.
This now-iconic image of Charlie Phillip’s Marlin release revealed this adhesion problem, and left un-
We are currently experimenting with different sanding and paint combinations to make sure the next layer of black bottom paint adheres without incident.
First Mate Alex poured time into maintaining his ‘office’ by completely refinishing the fighting chair.
Panga
The growth of FishingNosara has substantially increased the burden on the local panga drivers of Garza Bay, and with the increased traffic comes increased chance of delays.
To remedy this we are proud to introduce our new addition to the fleet of Garza transport vessels. The new Transporter was ordered from NBC Boatworks / FibroMaster and picked up from Nicaragua last month.
This is the same builder of the Explorer and Adventurer, so we know that is it up to the challenge of ferrying supplies, anglers, and crew from the beach.
Captain David is our resident expert in marine construction, so he took the lead fashioning a beautiful floor for the new panga.
Marino helped to sand the beams to perfect level with the horizontal stringers, and David attended to the final details to make all the pieces fit smoothly.
It goes without saying that this is the sweetest little panga boat you’ve ever seen!
Meanwhile, we have two exciting expansions to announce at Nosara Paradise Rentals. The first is the acquisiton of our newest property, Casa Serene. This oversized studio is intended to fill the needs of the couple or small family wanting the intimacy of a studio combined with the larger property footprint of a two-bedroom house.
The current structure sits next to Casa Caribe and beside Casa Jardin. This pushes the outer perimeter of our campus to the main access road, so this privacy wall will deliver the level of quiet and comfort that our guests expect.
Of course the ink was barely dry on the sales agreement by the time Javier had a few guys over there starting with the renovations. Javier is a building machine!
Casa Serene features the same authentic Tico archetecture of Casa Tranquilo and Casa Surfeando. The difference with Casa Serene is that we will open up the floorspace of two small units into one oversized studio.
The staff is hard at work getting Casa Serene ready, and we can’t wait to see the results.
North Loop Office
We are very excited to introduce the new FishingNosara office located on the North Loop of Guiones Beach near Kaya Sol and Guilded Iguana.
This office will serve as the headquarters for our airport transfer drivers and also offer fishing trips, safari tours, and safari cart rentals. Only 1km from our main office, this substation will serve the community of surfers and vacationers who come to the North Loop and never make it over our way.
This office used to be our off-campus house Olas Pequinos until Craig and Javier began the reconstruction back in May.
Here’s how Craig’s magic marker works:
Front:
Side:
Back Wall:
Landscape Barrier:
We managed to transplant a few of these trees back to the main campus which adds that much more vegetation to the nature preserve.
Front Entry:
Once all the major reconstruction was complete the crew plowed ahead with the new parking lot and garden. Also a fresh coat of paint helps the new office really pop out of the jungle.
We are in the process of furnishing the new office and expect to have it open for business on November 5.
Back in the US we are burning the candle at both ends to finish up and deliver the Discoverer to the boys in Garza.
The boats are on the hill and the houses sit empty, but the action never stops at Nosara Paradise Rentals and FishingNosara. Like all great franchises, we don’t rebuild…we reload!
The Explorer is the focus of this year’s boat work. With over 400 trips under her belt, the Super panga has outperformed all exceptions. However there are a few rough spots that we hope to address during the next two months.
Captain David and Captain Carlos have already strengthened the soft spots in the floor with fresh fiberglass
They also plan to revamp the cabinets in the consoles, touch up some hasty mid-season fiberglass repairs, and of course go around the entire boat and service every bolt, nut, and washer with fresh 5200.
The Wanderer received such a thorough rebuild last off season that this year the maintenance is mostly cosmetic.
Clearly a new coat of bottom paint is in order, along with a new set of stickers for the prow (look close…the port side says “WAND_RER”
First Mate Alex is redoing the finish and stain on his custom fighting chair. This item takes a lot of abuse from clients during the year so it needs to be tightened up. In addition to being an excellent carpenter and a world-class fisherman, Alex is a perfectionist and will do whatever it takes to get this piece up to his high standards.
The property staff is also busy getting Nosara Paradise Rentals ready for another banner year. As usual all of the houses are getting fresh paint and varnish, but the real star of this year’s work is the facelift for Casa Caribe.
This two bedroom house on the outer perimeter of the Nature Preserve has pleased many clients over the years, yet we never loved the drab pastels of the paint scheme, especially the pumpkin orange.
Here’s the new look of electric blue and yellow. These pictures barely do it justice, but believe me that now this house POPS out of the jungle.
Also the upstairs patio deck was starting to get a little soft so in the interest of safety and longevity we ripped out the old deck and installed a completely new one.
If you need someone to defy gravity you can always count on Grevan Hernandez…Look how he flies with the greatest of ease!
So the property staff is on the houses and the boat guys are on the boats, so where do you think the office guys are?
That’s right…Repainting and reorganizing the office!
Anybody want to help Arturo inventory the our shirts?
Didn’t think so!
Work continues and we look forward to sharing the results in the October report.
Time to see if all the hard work pays off! The entire FishingNosara team was on hand to re-launch the refitted and repainted Wanderer.
As usual we waited for the high tide to peak at the western end of Garza, then David backed the mighty Wanderer into position on the shoreline.
Here is her last view of the shore without the water in the way for the next 9 months.
All hands were required to push her in, so we don’t have photos of that endevor, but you can always check out the Explorer Beach Launch Video to get the idea.
Our flagship vessel should now be ready for another 600+ great trips and she looks better than ever.
The refinished wood cabin, fighting chair, and teak covering boards are the eye-catchers, but those who have followed the Wanderer refit know how many essential non-cosmetic repairs went into the refit.
It was a grisly couple of months, but the sight of the blue beauty in the water and ready to fish makes it all worth the effort.
Thanks everyone for the great response to the Wanderer refit thread. Here are some fresh photos of the flagship as we get ready for our fishing season to kick off next week.
We addressed the Morse code-esque holes along the rear lip of the hull where a few generations of trim tabs used to be:
Next up was installing the rub rail and the thru-hull fittings on the outer hull. Lots of 5200 now means less troubles later!
The boys also tightened up the transom deck and painted over the fiberglass repairs from the trim tabs. The end result is a new-looking transom that should provide years of good service.
While Captain William and First Mate Alex tidy up the flagship and get her rigged with fresh line and new tackle, Captain David and Captain Carlos painted the bottoms of the Explorer and Adventurer to match the bad black on the Wanderer. This look helps tie the fleet together and should last much longer than the chip-prone blue paint we’ve used in the past.
It’s been a whirlwind eight weeks but I am proud to report that all three FishingNosara boats are ready to rock and roll! Keep a sharp eye the FishingNosara blog for catch reports, photos, and videos from the Best Sportfishing team in Costa Rica!
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