Pescando en los esteros

Although fishing for a living in Ciudad Cortes is not as popular as it was in the past, fishing still is one of the favorite pass times for many in the community. El Gran Rio Terraba, the largest river in Costa Rica, passes through Cortes and eventually empties out into the Pacific Ocean. Cortes also is full of estuaries and mangroves which house an abundance of wildlife. I consider myself lucky to live in a fishing community, as I really enjoy doing it too.

I recently went on a fishing trip to the estuaries with one of my friends. It was an adventure. To get to the estuaries, we traveled first on bike through dirt gravel roads through the rice parcels, small farmers' fincas, and pastures of cattle. Eventually we reached a barbwire fence, which we crossed leaving our bikes behind. We traversed lagoons, marshy pastures with cattle, and small creaks along the way.

On this particular fishing trip, we fished with "camaron" (shrimp), which live in swampy ponds and lagoons. In the US, I was accustomed to fishing with "lombrices" (worms), which I think it is safe to say are much easier to find than camarones. We were able to find camarones after scavenging and scraping through various murky ponds. We used a mesh net, which we dragged on the bottom of the ponds to catch the camarones. It was a muddy muddy job, and I'm probably leaving out a lot of details. I actually enjoyed it and I learned a lot. It took about an hour to get sufficient an amount of bait. When my friend told me we would find camarones in some of the lagoons, I was quite surprised that life could exist there, but he was right.

We reached the estuaries at about 8:30 am, which was perfect timing as the tide was low. This means that all of the fish that came in on the high tide will be leaving the estuaries, which gives one a better chance to catch something. It's also good to be fishing when the tide is rising, as fish will be coming in to the estuary looking for food. In short, to fish successfully in the estuaries everything depends on the tides, which took me a while to understand.

We fish using "bolillos", which I think I will save the description of how they are made and how they are used for a future post. It is an art and is something I had to practice a lot, but I am getting pretty good with using them. It is way different than the poles we use in the US. I almost like "bolillos" more than poles. It has a more personal feel to it.

The trip was an overall success. We caught six "pargo", which came in on the high tide. These things are delicious fried. I even eat the eyes. Cleaning them is easy, however, they have some prickly scales that must be scraped off before cooking them.

It's hard to include every detail, but I assure you that it was a heck of a time. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see some pictures of the trip. I usually don't take my camera along when I go fishing here, but I took it with me this time.