Gear for Costa Rica DIY Beach Fishing

SierraAngler · Dec 14, 2023

Hi All, I'm planning a trip to Playa Negra, CR this coming spring and wanted to get some advice on what gear to bring for some DIY surf fishing. I've got an 8wt and 7wt with an Intermediate and a Sonar Surf line. I do a bit of surf fishing for perch, corbina, croaker and halibut here in So Cal but haven't done any in CR. Any thoughts on what flies might be good to bring along? Will those lines be appropriate?

Thanks in advance!

Rick

SurfnFish · Dec 14, 2023

Nega a fave surf spot back in the pre-crowd 80's, wife and I would stay at the newly constructed Iguanazul (great place), backroad to the surf. Some afternoons we'd snorkel the reefs out front of the hotel, lotta fish cruising shallow.
What you have should work fine, hard to go wrong with Clousers and similar.

SierraAngler · Dec 14, 2023

SurfnFish said:
Nega a fave surf spot back in the pre-crowd 80's, wife and I would stay at the newly constructed Iguanazul (great place), backroad to the surf. Some afternoons we'd snorkel the reefs out front of the hotel, lotta fish cruising shallow.
What you have should work fine, hard to go wrong with Clousers and similar.

Nice, I did a bunch of surfing just north of there at Avellanas river mouth years ago but never tried to fish it. Looking forward to checking out Negra for a bit. Thanks for the input!

clarkman · Dec 14, 2023

Never fished CR specifically, but what are you fishing for primarily there? Roosters & jacks, I'm assuming? If so, you're gonna wish you had at least a 10wt if you hook into a med-large one (a 7wt just isn't going to cut it--although can be fun with some smaller inshore species--I never felt too over-gunned fishing my 9wt in Baja though). Unweighted streamers are going to be easier to cast (imho), but if it were me, I'd take both clousers and unweighted stuff matching whatever the predominant baitfish of the area is (probably similar to Baja but then again, our best fly last year in Baja was a good old fashioned Seahawk colored albacore fly--go figure). Sounds like a helluva fun trip!

SierraAngler · Dec 14, 2023

Good call on the unweighted stuff. Probably be going after some smaller inshore snook and jacks hopefully, a little rooster could be fun on the 8 wt if things go my way. Unfortunately, my heaviest rod is an 8 so hopefully that’ll take care of most shore fish. Can’t wait!