My name is Judd Schreiber.  I wanted to send you a report from a kayak fishing trip with kayak fishing guide, Ralph Solano, in Costa Rica.  I usually surfcast for stripers in NJ and I heard good things about Ralph through stripersonline.com.  I set up a trip with him for when I would be visiting Costa Rica.

We put our kayaks in the water on December 1 near Potrero in the Guanacaste region and started off jigging and using poppers.  At first we caught a bunch of croc fish.  Then we paddled out to some rocks, and we could see there were many fish around including jack crevalles and roosterfish, but they were very picky probably because there was so much bait in the area.  A few small rooster blitzes started up right near us, but it was very difficult to entice the fish with our offerings.  I missed a nice hit from what Ralph said was a rooster.  Then I caught a big needlefish, which Ralph taught me are surprisingly actually great as sushi.  After this area cooled off a bit, and right at the time Ralph said it would start, birds began working over a bunch of sardinas near where we launched.  We headed back over there and Ralph caught a baracuda which was probably about 18 inches or so.  He rigged it for me to liveline as bait for what I really wanted to catch, a roosterfish.  We paddled a for a while to where Ralph knew the big roosters hang out, trolling the whole way.  Shortly after we got to the spot Ralph knew about, there was a hard pull on the line.  After a good battle I landed a big rooster that Ralph estimated to be approximately 60 lbs.  The fight was great and was particularly fun because we were using 15lb test mono so we had to make sure it didnt snap off.  Ralph knew every nook and cranny of the area as well as all of the habits of the fish we were after.  He was a great guide and a pleasure to fish with.