Endless Summer Fishing Trip Part 4: Fly Fishing the Caribbean

By Peter Cottrell and Rowan Nairn

Flying into the rainforests of Barra del Colarado, Costa Rica was like flying into another world. Every so often between the verdant green upper canopy we glimpses of the mighty Rio Colarado, of which we had heard so much about.

This beginning of the last phase of our trip, with the intention being to travel up the Caribbean coast from Costa Rica to Belize over three months. Having researched they are quite extensively we were intent on sampling the best that the Caribbean has to offer.

Barra del Colarado was the first of our Tarpon sorties as it is reputed to have large numbers of big Tarpon. This small fishing village thrives around the six top end fishing lodges based on the river banks. We were not privy to such luxury but were fortunate to find a comfortable little hotel and excellent local guide minutes after we got off the plane.

Not an hour later we were anchored on a bend in the river surrounded by monkeys and birds of every description. The river itself was dirty but there was still evidence of a number of big Tarpon. While it seemed futile at times striking at the faintest touch resulted in a number of these "Poons" completely clearing the water.

As is well documented most of these jumps resulted in the fly being violently flung away. Our crowning glory was landing a sizeable brute after it had dragged us about a kilometer downstream.

It is strange how things all happen for a purpose but while at Barra del Colarado we got wind of another exceptional Tarpon fishery up the Rio San Juan in Nicaragua. Despite there being no information on the place we suspected it would be good as the nearest village was called Boca de Sabalo (village of Tarpon).

This and the fact that it was off the beaten track saw us make the strenuous three day trip by bus and boat to the remote village of El Castillo. On our first morning while having coffee overlooking the river we were thrilled by the sight of hundreds of Tarpon rolling up the river. Things moved quickly and it took no time to procure a boat and guide.

Again here it was frustrating that we could not hook-up given the number of fish we were seeing and only managed to land one in the 50 pound range. We could not help thinking that a bit of time invested exploring techniques here could result in a large number of big fish being caught.

While still in Nicaragua we had the fortune of visiting the Corn islands. These Islands can only be described as the quintessential laid back Caribbean islands with the added bonus of a couple of shoals of resident Bonefish.

We had planned to go for 5 days but ended up staying 10. A large reason for this was the presence of these bonefish on your doorstep as you roll out of the hammock. In stark contrast to these uneducated fish the Belize Bonefish were very skittish probably due to the much greater fishing pressure. We still managed to bag a couple and found that on average they were of a bigger size.

It must be said that the main attraction for Belize, specifically Placencia and Punta Gorda, was the large numbers of permit on the flats around the cayes. Permit fishing is difficult at best and would be impossible without a local guide.

Using Bruce as our guide we saw huge numbers of Permit over the next couple of days. If finding Permit is difficult, then casting to them is even harder. It is funny that even when you have been casting almost every day for the last four months that a tailing 20 pound Permit can render you useless.

Given the large number of Permit we saw we were still thrilled at having three hook-ups with only one fish landed. As if the permit fishing in Belize was not enough we also had the opportunity to sight cast to tarpon and wrestle the odd Snook out of the mangroves.

We were hoping that our five month trip would quell the fishing bug for the next year or so but in reality we were already planning the next trip before we had left Belize. Now all we need to do is win that damn Lotto.

For more information on organizing your own adventure fishing tour to the most exciting adventure fishing locations in the world, please contact us via our guided fishing trip enquiry form today.