Billfishing, Central American Style

By Angus Phillips
Washingtonpost.com



PLAYA CARRILLO, Costa Rica

Anyone who billfishes in the mid-Atlantic is keenly aware of the downsides of the game. You rise at 4 a.m., pound through rough seas getting to the Gulf Stream, might troll all day without raising a fish, then beat yourself silly going 60 or 80 miles home.

Does it have to be that way? Marlin fisherman Phil Price thinks not. He abandoned his Maryland home waters years ago to embrace the "Tico life" on Costa Rica's placid Pacific coast, where the only beating you get billfishing is from the most desirable of angling excesses, too many fish.

"Ticos" is what locals call themselves. "Que rico!" is their favorite expression, used to celebrate the richness of life, nowhere more evident than 20 miles at sea where the bottom drops to unfathomable depths and sailfish and blue, black and striped marlin roam the warm, cobalt-hued waters.

"The first time I came down in 1991," said Price, a fit and trim 58-year-old who parlayed a job teaching school on Kent Island into a satisfying nest egg by investing in and developing property there, "I chartered a boat and caught a 550-pound black marlin and 32 sailfish in one day. I said, 'Oh. I get it!' "

Three months later he came back in his own boat, a 47-foot North Carolina offshore fisherman he brought through the Panama Canal. "We tore 'em up. I caught more marlin in the next three years than I had my whole life."

Almost all were released with the notable exception of a 942-pound blue he thought might be a "grander" of over 1,000 pounds. The fish expired in the battle and was winched aboard using the anchor capstan and the strong backs of five men. It was, says Price, "the biggest marlin ever brought to the dock in Costa Rica, as far as I know."

Some of this I learned in an unlikely place. Price, who owns and runs Charles Town Marina on the upper Chesapeake, helps his friend, Buddy Harrison, by working as mate aboard Harrison's charter boat out of Chesapeake House on Tilghman Island each spring during trophy rockfish season. He works for free, for the pleasure of the 70-year-old Harrison's company. "Nobody knows more about the Bay than Buddy," says Price. "He's an institution."

"Phil is just crazy for fishing," says Harrison.

Marlin season here runs January to April, mostly good months to skip out on the Chesapeake, and for 10 years Price pounded the Pacific hard. A few years ago he replaced the big boat with a 31-foot Gamefisher, Permit III, and arranged for a local skipper to run charters on it when he wasn't here. He's even buying a little house here.

That was the picture painted aboard Harrison's boat one day last spring. "Want to come?" asked Price. "All you have to do is get yourself down there."

Which is how we came to be breasting a gentle Pacific swell last week, trolling four teasers and one ballyhoo at 71/2 knots as a bright morning sun crested parched coastal mountains and lit the sea. Price, Harrison, Glenn Higgins from St. Michaels and I watched four hookless teasers churn and splash in the wake, hoping they'd draw some pelagic behemoth's attention and wrath. For an hour nothing happened, then it was mayhem. Skipper Chepe Santana shouted in Spanish and mates Alan Nuñez-Lopez and Ephraim Carrillo, the latter not yet old enough to shave, raced to attend the teasers.

"Blue marlin!" Price shouted, grabbing a rod pre-rigged with a two-foot-long Spanish mackerel bait. He tossed the mackerel overboard and let it swim alongside the nearest teaser, 75 feet behind the boat. More shouting from the bridge. I spied a tall, menacing dorsal fin cleaving the surface. The marlin was making its move.



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Price twitched the bait, the marlin's spear flashed and the fish raced through the wake, inhaling the plump mackerel. Down went Price's right arm till the rod pointed straight at the bait; line spilled from the reel, free-spooling for five, six seconds. His left hand found the strike lever, rammed it forward and he felt a satisfying pull. Fish on!

The marlin ran out 200 feet of line, then the 50-pound-test monofilament sheared up from the depths, signaling a jump. Out raged the great fish, shaking its spiny mane, spray flying. "Two hundred and fifty pounds at least," said Price, handing me the rod. "Go get him!"

They strapped me in the fighting chair. Six, seven, eight times the marlin skittered across the glittering sea, each time getting bigger. The estimate jumped to 350 pounds, then 400. When the fish went deep it was like winching a Volkswagen from the ocean floor. "Reel! Reel!" Price shouted. Little Ephraim poured cold water down my back.

Twenty minutes of that was all the fun I cared for. Begging off for a chance to snap photos, I handed the rod to Price with the marlin close at hand but it ran off anew. It was 10 minutes more before Nuñez-Lopez could grab the 30-foot leader and make the catch official. He tugged on the line hard, infuriating the marlin, which leaped and tail-walked just 20 feet from the transom.

Now that's billfishing.

The big blue proved to be the highlight of the next two days. We raised four more marlin, bringing two to the boat, one 200 pounds and the other a baby at 100 pounds. We also raised a half-dozen sailfish, all about 100 pounds (far bigger than their Atlantic kin ever get) and brought four to the boat after spectacular, leaping fights. The hope for a Carillo Slam -- blue and striped marlin plus a sailfish -- or a grand slam with a black marlin thrown in was not answered.

But for a Marylander, anytime you go after marlin and catch some, it's an unqualified triumph. Besides, the way my back and arms feel, I'm not sure I want to come back for a bang-up week.

As for experiencing Central American life 540 miles from the equator, there is much to be said for it this time of year. The weather is warm, things are relatively inexpensive (full day's marlin charter goes for $900 instead of twice that back home), the food is fresh and good, the locals relaxed and friendly and just 10 minutes from the black sand beaches here, you can watch monkeys cavorting in the jungle. It rains six months a year, May through October, so don't come then.

The other good news for Washingtonians is that United Airlines recently started nonstop daily service from Dulles to San Jose, which is four hours drive from Playa Carrillo, for $378 round-trip, a bargain.

Billfishing should remain good here for the next six weeks; you can book trips through Price Insidecostarica.com at 410-924-1810.