Good three days of fishing.  Strange weather on day 2, 30 knot winds and 8 to 10 foot seas.  Not unlike a brisk day in Bermuda, but totally freaky for CR.  If we had been signed up for the tournament, we would have had second place overall and in the daily Calcutta. Clearly we were having fishing as good as it could be. Got a nice 225# marlin on 30#  and one BIG sail that they said went 150 – 180#.  I think we had 13 sails overall and held a respectable hook up ratio.  Three of four nice Dorados, too.  Oh yeah, we also  caught a turtle and a bird, both safely released.

- Bruce Dilke

This is why you should not wait to do a fishing report. Hmmmmm, what did happen? Well, we made a boys’ trip down to Costa Rica to see Capt. Mike, Chowie and Arturo. Capt. Allen decided to come fishing for a vacation, Super Dave and Fletch (Bermuda’s favorite bartender) and I had a great time.

The sails were not super thick but how can you complain about double digits every day? The weather was beautiful and we had a great time. The most notable catch was Super Dave’s Blue Marlin. This fish obviously did not know about the “Pacific fish stay on top and jump around”. Poor Dave had to reel in 71/72 nds of a spool of line to get that fish in, but he did it. Great job Dave!

The next best show was put on by yours truly, emptying (virtually single handedly) the drink box on De Mako. This is why it is not a good idea to start the day with a rum. Ah well, live and learn. (I would like to point out that while walking was hard, I did go 2 for 2 on sails.)

I promise to do better on the report when I return at the end of March.

- Jeff Radke

Well, that sure was a successful trip.  We ended up catching 5 marlin, 42 (ish) sails and innumerable dolphin for the 6 days of fishing.  Not bad at all!

The weather was predictably great with flat seas and sunny hot days which moderated at night.  Except for the last day, that is.  It blew in the morning!  We all thought we were in the Atlantic.  By the end of the morning, things had settled back down and we started seeing fish, especially after we ran a little to get a change of scenery.  It turned out to be a great call.

One interesting note – Chowie and his understudy, Arturo, managed to both hook the same fish twice in a day!  The first time is was a Dolphin that was apparently starving and the second was a Sail that decided he couldn’t eat just one.  Both circle hooks were right next to each other in the Sail’s jaw.  It was a pretty easy release.

Hope you like the pictures, more reports coming soon as De Mako is fishing pretty steadily for the next couple months.

This is Chowie’s Ceviche recipe. He makes it on the boat on the way out and then it is ready for lunch. Yum!

Ingredients:
• one ziplock of fillet (usually Dolphin)
• One green pepper
• One medium onion
• One bunch of cilantro
• One can Ginger Ale
• Six limes

Preparation:
• Mix water and a lot of salt in a bowl
• Cut the fillets into 1/4 inch cubes
• Put the fish into the salt water
• Stir fish, allow to stay in salt water for about 5 minutes
• Drain the fish and rinse with fresh water
• Squeeze the limes into a bowl.
• Put fish (only) in lime juice, stir and
• Allow to sit while you chop vegetables
• Chop onion, pepper and cilantro very finely
• Add chopped veggies to fish and lime juice
• Add about 1/2 can of Ginger Ale. Stir.
• Add two splashes of the Luzano Salsa
• Add Tabasco if you like it hot

Put the bowl in the Freezer for 30 minutes and then refrigerator for another hour and serve.

Here is a fishing report that I cannot wait to write!  Over four days ending December 17, Black & Blue member Mike Rehberg had a bunch of guys down for a little fishing.

Everything was proceeding as normal until they heard Captain Mike call out, “Killer Whale, right teaser!”.  What???  Check it out.  A Killer Whale came up and bit (and missed) the teaser.  Chowie said it was a sissy bite too.  Well, when that Whale jumped right afterwards everybody headed away from the transom and back towards the salon.

The other great story is that one of the guys on the trip (another Mike) caught, from his wheelchair, a Sail and a Striped Marlin.  That is a pretty cool story to go with those great shots.  Way to go Mike!

Things are off to a great start this season in Costa Rica.  De Mako and Captain Mike have been out a fair amount over the past few weeks and Black and Blue members have had great luck.

While Marling numbers aren’t huge, Capt. Mike is finding them here and there.

Yellowfin Tuna in the 40 to 60 pound range are being caught pretty frequently and on the light tackle used, they put up a great fight.

Sailfish are all over the place.  A couple of days we have seen bites in the thirties and releases in the twenties.  Now that is fishing!

As we head into the holidays, we are out pretty much every day so we should have plenty of stories and pictures to share.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Best wishes for a spectacular 2010.

- Jason Doyle and Jeff Radke

We just finished a six day trip to Costa Rica and were able to put together a great trip even though September is not known as the best of months in Costa Rica. What September often does see is a run of Marlin offshore from the town of Flamingo, about 150 miles NW of Los Suenos. This marlin run was our objective for the week. While things did not work out as planned, the trip really highlighted the benefits of Black & Blue over traditional chartering.

We began moving De Mako NW on Friday, fishing most of the way. We were able to catch seven sailfish out of about ten bites on the way. We made it into Flamingo Bay around nightfall the first night. The next day we fished off of Flamingo in the morning with no luck. No bites, no bait, no birds. It was a pretty ominous beginning. We ran into Flamingo Bay at lunch to pick up the rest of the members for the trip and headed back out for the afternoon. While the weather was great, the afternoon was more of the same – no signs of life at all. It was so bad that we all made a pretty quick decision when we got back to Flamingo Bay that night. With the water so empty off of Flamingo we decided to head SE in the morning and keep going until we saw signs of life. All of the anglers checked out of their hotel rooms and took a Pango out to De Mako at 6 am and we set out to the SE in the same green water. We ran quite a few miles in this unpromising water and then set out the baits as the water started to turn bluer. The fish we had caught on the way up were about half way, off the coast from the town of Correa and, sure enough, that is where we found them again. We caught three or four sails and and a 24 pound dolphin. By the end of the fishing day, we decided to run to Los Suenos and the condo to spend the night.

The next four days we fished out of Los Suenos. We continued to fish SE of the Elbow. We had a couple of double digit Sailfish days and ended up with about 32 Sailfish for the trip. The rain held off for us duing the day and we were able to fish in nice weather with the swell being significant on only one day. In addition to the Sailfish and assorted Dolphin, September is typically a good month for Yellowfin Tuna. We found this to be the case as we followed flocks of diving birds to find big schools of Tuna working in front of equally large schools of Spinner Dolphins. The Tuna would boil to the surface, eating small bait that looked like Krill and then go back down. There were several fish we saw that looked to be better than 100 pounds in the melee. We caught our share of Tuna out of these schools but we did not catch any of the big ones. I guess the big ones get big because they know what a bait or lure looks like! Even better than catching the Tuna was watching the show. Tuna jumping, Spinner dolphin chasing, birds diving….what a site.

October is maintenance month for us, De Mako is getting hauled and we have the usual bits and bobs to get done before the Costa Rica season begins in earnest. November through March is generally the best fishing and we are really looking forward to this year.
We will be back with an update when we get back to fishing.

- Capt. Mike Springer

We finally were able to fish Panama when the water conditions were right. It is always tricky when there are weeks between trips to keep track of fishing conditions. Schedules being what they are, you have to find a gap in the work schedules and hope for the best.

Well, we got lucky. Four of us flew down last Wednesday, took the 20 min taxi ride to the boat from the airport, hopped on the boat and ran 60 miles to San Jose Islands. We anchored up for the night there. The islands are essentially empty but provide a great way to break up the run (I think of it as South but it is really mainly East) to the fishing grounds.

We woke up early Thursday and ran another 20 miles to fish down towards Pinas Bay. The first day we went 9 for 12 on Sails and caught a few nice Dolphin. Day Two we worked the Zane Grey Reef for a while, trolling live baits for Marlin while catching Yellowfins and Amberjacks with poppers cast from the bow. Later on in the day we moved offshore for a bunch more Sails, big Dolphin and an estimated 250 pound Blue Marlin. We had a great dinner on De Mako and had a few cocktails as day turned to night and recounted all of the stories from the day.  Not a bad day at all!

Friday (Day 3) was “The One”. It made the trip! Like the previous day, we started off live baiting the reef in hopes of a big Black Marlin and we got her! Captain Mike Springer, who has caught his share of big fish, estimated her to be 700 pounds. On a 50 pound outfit. Stand up! I fought her for close to three hours and we got a great jumping release. I sure was glad to have a trained professional along (Kenny the dentist) to take care of all those teeth I had ground down to nothing during the fight.

We moved offshore, caught a Sail quickly and then caught an estimated 500 pound Blue to complete the De Mako’s first ever slam! I won’t go on and on about the Blue because I was not the angler.

Day Four consisted of a bunch more big Sails and Dolphin and finished with the heart breaking loss (because I was the angler) of a 200lb class Yellowfin after a three hour battle with under-matched spinning tackle (looks like I am going shopping!!).  Overall, an amazing trip!

I am really glad Black and Blue had a great trip in Panama to make all of us anxious to return next year. De Mako is making the trip up to Los Suenos shortly so that the boat is in place to fish the Marlin run off Flamingo in September / October.   By December (hopefully November) the action should be heating up off of Los Suenos. I know we are all anxious to make it back to Costa Rica this winter.

So anxious, in fact, that the days are being booked faster than I would have expected. If you are a member and have not picked your days for this winter, I would suggest that you take a look at the calendar and start picking. If you have been waiting to join, we have a few more months before we close out the “Founding Member” category (they get first cut at scheduling days), so you might want to get in touch and become a member before that ends.

- Jason Doyle

Well, Black and Blue Fishing club, MAKO and the De Mako are just about ready to go.
First, some news about the Club – we finally have the legal and banking stuff done.  It was a bother to set it all up so formally, but in these times of economic uncertainty, we think it will pay off to have dotted the “i’s”.  You are reading this so the new website works. Many thanks to Wade at rainmakerwebdesign.com for his help on the site. Like most things, a website is about 7.2 times harder and more time consuming than I would have guessed. The effort to recruit members is going well with three Founding Members already. The captains and members have emailed the proposal to many of their friends and contacts.  We are quietly confident that it will be a success given the interest we are seeing after a week or two.

De Mako – that is the boat that will end up in the Pacific – is sitting in West Palm Beach Florida.  She had some work done to get her ready for Panama (back up generator, watermaker, satellite phone and TV, etc).  We expect that she will be ready to go shortly.  I am attending a convention of sorts this weekend as Allen DeSilva (the Club’s Bermuda captain), Mike Springer (the Club’s Pacific captain) and I descend on South Florida to meet with Jason Doyle and make sure the boat is ready for the trip.

And what a trip it is.  Florida to the Canal is a long, long way.  While Mike has plenty of experience with trips that long, most of the rest of us are more used to the 750 mile run from Bermuda to North Carolina.  I always think of crossings as being like a policeman.  You are going to be bored or scared…and you really hope it works out that you are bored. We expect De Mako will be fishing in Panama by the end of April.  I know several members have expressed an interest in trying to get down there as quickly as they can.  We are looking forward to those first fishing reports!

MAKO, the boat the Club will run in Bermuda, is probably being sanded as we speak.  Let me explain.  MAKO is being built by Sunny Briggs in North Carolina.  The new MAKO is the third boat Sunny built for Allen and me.  If you have ever watched one of these boats constructed, you know that the process is 1/2 sanding, 1/2 everything else.  Sunny, Jeff and the guys are doing a great job pushing to have her done by May 1.  She is going to be pretty!  I can’t wait to see her overboard. We will add pictures of both of the boats when we get back from the upcoming trip.
– Jeff Radke