Do-It-Yourself Tarpon, Tico-Style

Just back from our annual ten-day Central America fishing extravaganza - three countries (Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica), 7 species of fish, 37 hours of driving and 11 hours of sleep. Here's Matt trying to hang on to his first tarpon from the stern of a leaky tin boat we'd rented from a farmer in northern Costa Rica - one of the trip's many highlights, despite slow fishing this year. Other highlights included: Fishing for baby tarpon in a lagoon near the Panama border, only to find they'd all flushed out to sea during the winter floods, fishing for guapote and laguneros in Lake Nicaragua, only to find the water levels had risen a few feet and netters had fished out the lake and last, but not least, my swan dive off the bow of our boat (and into crocodile infested waters) when we hit a log floating downstream on our favorite machaca river.