Dave Ferrell's Trip Reports

A Successful Costa Rica Trip

I just recently returned from a very successful Marlin University down in Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica. The fishing was pretty darn good -- we saw a marlin every day on our boat, the world-famous record setter, The Hooker, with Captain Trevor Cockle. We even caught three blue ones on the last day ... and still lost the mini-tournament! (I had made the mistake of counting released sails at 100 points and all marlin at 200. The crew on Wet Ass II scored two blues and two sails to take first place on time! Trevor never let me hear the end of it.)

After the students left, my wife came down to join me for a little R & R.

Capt. Sonny Kocsis on Wet Ass II volunteered to take us fishing for a couple of days -- no charge (Thanks, Sonny!) -- and we readily accepted.

The first fish of the day came up on the left long and eagerly got up to catch the sail. (I'd been watching and teaching other people how to do it for four straight days and really wanted to get in on the action myself!) The fish ate; I dropped it back; and he was on - a perfect hookup. It was too easy. Just as I hooked my fish, a striped marlin swarmed into the spread and our guest angler. Sonny's brother-in-law, Rolando, hooked the fish. Of course, we started charging off in reverse after the stripey -- he was closest and a marlin no less, so that's the one we wanted to catch first.

The stripey streaked off in the opposite direction of the sail, and line melted off my spool as we chased down the marlin. It took a good five or six minutes to catch up with the greyhounding fish, and by the time we got a release, my sailfish was jumping over a half-mile away! The circle hook hung in there, though and I finally got a release after reeling in several hundred yards of 30-pound. Joy.

I then proceeded to go on a five-swing losing streak. The next two sails came up and ate perfectly; I dropped back five seconds with the line falling off the tip perfectly, smooth as a baby's backside. But the fish were slicker. When I lifted the drag lever to strike and started to wind ... nothing.

After missing the second fish, I decided to let the next one eat a little bit longer. Sure enough, another fish came up and ate the shotgun bait (I know he ate it because I saw it), and I really let this one chew!

After about five seconds, the fish raced off like a rocket on me and I let the damn reel backlash. But I calmly told the captain what was happening and started reeling immediately after pushing up the drag to get some line on the spool and wind over the mess. That worked great, and when the line came tight, the hook pulled. Or so I thought. I reeled in the rig and found an open swivel. The mate then told me I was feeding them too long.

In the meantime, our first-time angler was hauling back on the circle hooks, pumping the rod the like a madman and hooking everything.

The following day the fourth and fifth fish just kept my streak, and the jokes, flowing. During the two days I heard several comments about my need to attend the next Marlin U. Ha Ha! Very funny.

The truth is I wouldn't have done a thing differently on any of the fish that I missed -- except for the backlash incident. The whole scenario just proved the point that we hammer into every student -- you try to do the same thing every time, smoothly and in a timely manner. Let the fish take the bait without knowing you are there and set up easy on him. He will either be there or he won't.

It sure sucks when he isn't.

Dave Ferrell

POSTED BY MarlinEdit AT 10:13

Costa Rica Goes Well!

I just arrived back home after a great first session of Marlin University in beautiful Guanamar, Costa Rica. The fish showed up in sufficient numbers to get everyone at least a couple of shots, and everyone caught a billfish on the trip.

However, our first snag sprang up on the bus ride from Liberia to Guanamar, normally a two-hour drive. Upon entering the small village of Nicoya, we found ourselves stuck behind 200 to 300 cowboys on horseback! We hit the tart of a huge cowboy festival, and it took a good half-hour to break through. The anglers got to see a little bit of rural Costa Rican culture, though, so it turned into a mixed blessing.

I rode for four days on Family and Friends, with Capt. Mike Canino at the helm. We tore up our four-boat fleet the entire trip: 11 for 12 the first day, seven for 16 the second and 11 for 1 million on the third!

On the last day, however, Guanamar's famed marlin bite kicked in, and two of our four boats caught two or more marlin. Mark, Jeff and Jeff caught three blues (each got their first blue ever) and four sails on the final day on Ashley Nicole. And on Abracadabra, the Jones' boys out of Texas caught two striped marlin and four sails.

All of the fellows really enjoyed the first-class vittles served up at the Hotel Guanamar, and all were good sports regarding the rustic yet charming accommodations. I can tell you one thing: All the boys know that they went somewhere different. Our next trip is right back to the same spot -- March 10-15, and we are already sold out.

Dave Ferrell

POSTED BY MarlinEdit AT 11:51

Aussie Marlin U Session Dicey From the Outset

A cyclone named Goober, Ganga or some other such nonsense (could never make it out over the radio) made the first two days of the Great Barrier Reef session of Marlin U a bit on the hairy side. Ten to 15-foot seas tossed the game boats around quite a bit, but the intermittent rain and grey skies made up for it...ha. In short, we thought we were in for a busted trip. Any increase in wind would have made the fishing unsafe and we about a hair away from canceling a couple of fishing days. But our captains, Peter Wright, Hayden Bell and Darrin "Biggles" Hayden, decided to make a run for it to the south and ended up saving the trip for us.

Even in the mountainous seas rolling through the first day, two of the boats; the Release with Capt. Bell and the Allure with Capt. Biggsy, managed to catch one each.

On Day Two, the weather actually intensified as the storm wobbled around to our north. Allure caught another little one and we all decided to get the heck out of dodge and move south. Peter lost two nice ones, however, so the fishing wasn't that bad even in the all the slop.

After a nasty, rainy run down the inside of the reef, we popped out down closer to Cairns and found the seas a much more fishable 6 to 8. We caught two blacks that day on the Release weighing 200 and 400 pounds, the Allure added another to their total and Wright's Sea Baby finally got the hooks to stick and got on the board with their first. The sun even popped out for a few seconds so everyone felt much better about our prospects over the last two days.

Day four turned out to be the day of the giants on this trip with angler Chris Pepin hooking and releasing a fish that the crew on the Allure says was well over 1,000 pounds. Robin Day, one of the four Canadian fellows on the trip, also hooked and released a monster - Wright called the fish "900-plus." The video and stills of Bo Jenyns and Brandon Jackson on the wire with both of these fish thrilled everyone that night back on the Nomad. On the Release we had something to celebrate as well, we went three for three on our bites and caught several anglers their first black marlin ever.

Day four was our miniature tourney day, and although the seas didn't pick up any, the rain came in intermittent sheets. Sea Baby caught the first fish on Linden Bank, taking the lead and the coveted first-fish position that gave them an advantage on time. We had nice one come up early that morning and finally caught one for Spencer Allen, our 19-year wild man from Delaware. But we weren't through yet.

About 3 o'clock a huge explosion of white water took the place of the 30-pound scaly mackerel we had swimming on the left rigger - you could drive a truck into the resulting hole.

As our angler Paul "Paulie" Rowen heaved the rod out of the covering board and into the chair, our mate, Martin Bates, started reeling in the swimming scad. Just as the scad started skipping across the wake, a 500-pounder piled onto the bait, almost jerking the rod out of the mate's hand. "We've got another one on here Heyden," grunted Bates as he headed for the rod holder on the left.

Since there was no way Spencer could stand up with the 130, we opted to fight the 500-pounder from the covering board, hoping to get a quick release or break it off so we could chase down the monster.

Of course, both fish took off in opposite directions.

"This is not good," Hayden growled down from the tower, "we're going after the little one...get ready to wind Spenca'!"

The seas were still 4 to 6 and we started reversing quickly downsea on Spencer's fish.

"Wyonde, wyonde, wyonde..." chanted Hayden in his gravely Aussie accent. The fish came up jumping and Martin got his hands on the 600-pound leader but had to dump it when the fish started jumping hard away.

"Come on Martin help him out...quit ******-around," screamed Hayden, "I wanted you to break that thing off not dance with it!"

Yeah right. Nobody else blamed him for letting go.

We soon caught him again and got the tag in him for an unofficial release that didn't count in our little tourney. But now we needed to chase down the fatty.

Rowen told me early on in the trip that he wanted to catch a big one and now he had his chance. The "wyonde, wyonde" chat started again as we slowly backed up-sea following the long belly of line. Not more than five minutes later, the big girl came up behind the boat, shaking her huge head back and forth, slicing the water with a bill the size of a baseball bat.

We backed right up to her and when Kiwi Dean gave the leader a tug, out popped the hook. Martin put a tag in her and she was away - none the worse for wear. That second release (third for the day) gave us the win in our mini-tournament and made and excellent ending to a trip that looked pretty sketchy at the start.

I would like to personally thank all the participants who made the trip for coming and having the dogged determination to make something good out something that looked so bad. We had a great group of fellas and I think that it was their good spirits that kept the cyclone at bay.

In the end we a caught 17 black marlin, two over 900 and one we called a grander. Every student that fished caught at least one black marlin...it doesn't get any better than that.

Dave Ferrell

POSTED BY MarlinEdit AT 03:41

Marlin U. St. Thomas

I Just recently returned from a Marlin University Session in St.Thomas and had a great time with a fine group of fellas ... And this year the blue marlin decided to show up! It wasn't a stellar bite but it was good enough to get everybody a blue except for one guy ... And he had plenty of shots at it. (Sorry Jonathon!)

This year we fished with Red Bailey on the Abigail III, Eddie Morrison on the Marlin Prince and Hans Kraaz on the beautiful Bayliss, Vintage. Since I was trying to take some pictures, I rode along the Vintage to stay a bit drier, but Hans only had one mate and was running six teasers, so I got to play in the cockpit next to Alberto Sanchez for four days.

I got to tease a nice one up for bite and even suffered a snap-swivel wound to my left knuckle when a swivel came apart while Sanchez was wiring one of the two 450-to-500-pounders we caught on the trip. I reached out to cut the line and POW, the broken swivel came back and sliced a chunk out of my knuckle ... Better there than in the eye.

Red Bailey came out on top for the week, catching five blues in three days pulling lures at 8 knots. We had three good bites on the last day but we had a couple of angler errors -- not enough dropback, and a huge backlash -- that worked against us. But we saw some great bites and caught a few ...

What could be better?

Dave Ferrell

POSTED BY MarlinEdit AT 02:27