Something to crow about:
Costa Rica roosterfish are as fun to catch
as they are to look at!
Article from Florida Fishing Weekly
by Todd Staley, Fishing Director
Crocodile Bay Resort, Costa Rica

Click Here to Read the PDF Article

Crocodile Bay Resort
Adam Vinatieri´s foot connected with the ball and it began to travel end over end, floating almost if in slow motion as it split the uprights and splashed into the Golfo Dulce. This wasn’t like one of Vinateri’s famous last second, game winning Super Bowl field goals. This was play time. Vinateri’s kick sailed from the pier at Crocodile Bay Resort through a pair of improvised uprights: The raised outriggers for a 35-foot Strike. Measured later, it was determined the ball traveled 65 yards. Vinatieri who kicks for the Indianapolis Colts and lives in Florida in the off season holds seven different NFL kicking records and is a sure bet to be only the second pure placekicker to make it into the Hall of Fame. But he is not your placekick and pedicure kind of guy. He has taken the likes of Herschel Walker head-on, stopping a sure touchdown and when he is not playing football, he is hunting and fishing. He also holds a Crocodile Bay record
for the smallest roosterfish ever caught. (He’s caught plenty of big fish also).

Roosters are common in Costa Rica. Some run around your neighbor’s yard and drive you crazy about the time the sun is coming up, and others are a unique looking fish with an attitude. Named for its comb-like, seven-spined dorsal fin, zebra striped body and iridescent hue, roosterfish are found year round in the inland waters along the entire Pacific coastline. Many think that to catch roosterfish you have to fish dangerously close to the surf along the beaches. But, unlike Mexico, roosterfish are everywhere. Although a good number of them are taken in this scenario, they can also be taken in open water and have surprised anglers fishing for snapper in the middle of the gulf as well.

I once took guy who had surf fished for roosterfish for over 20 years to the far end of Golfo Dulce and stopped the boat about 600 yards from shore and told him to start casting his popper. He immediately
told me I was an idiot and didn’t know anything about roosterfish and he didn’t pay for a ¨boat ride¨. I mumbled a few unprintable words in Spanish to myself and asked him to keep casting. A half hour later as he released a 55-pound rooster, I politely told him that sometimes when we travel to a new destination, it is best to leave what we know about a certain species in our suitcase. Roosterfish here are as dumb as rocks when it comes to a live bait like a blue runner, goggle eye, or herring.

They are a little more leery of a popper, crankbait, or jig, but are regularly caught that way. No one I have met has them figured out with a fly. They are the most difficult fish I know to get to consistently
take a fly. If anyone out there has found the Holy Grail, to fool roosters on a fly, please let me know.
Pound for pound, roosterfish are one of the most exciting inshore species Costa Rica has to offer. Just when you think you have one whipped, you’re down another 50 yards of line. This happens several times before you have one to the boat for release. They definitely are a fish to crow about!


FF Weekly photos

Todd Staley
Fishing Director
Crocodile Bay Resort
Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica