That boy was me on April 16th 1968 at age 10. I’m the tired looking kid on the left!

Boca del Colorado, Costa Rica. We got there by dugout canoe. It’s the river on the Nicaragua border emptying into the Caribbean. I still have a faint scar on my left hand from when he hit the trolled lure. 85 lbs was just a guess…we had no scale.

Magnificent.
Did you live in central america at that time?
Whose the other kid?

Notice two iconic things about me: 1. My lucky rabbit foot hanging from my belt ….and those dang zippers always seem to be down in all my early pics!

Awesome! Bucket list fish. Eric

Ye
Yep. Dad drove us down the Pan-American highway from Oregon to San Jose in 1967. We lived there for 1 year.
Roughly a 5000 mile trip that took us 15 days to complete going through six countries including Costa Rica.
The other kid my 4 year older brother Ken. He’s smiling cuz he was happy that fish didn’t tear up his hand like mine!

STUD!!!
What was the family doing over there?

Awesome photo!!

That’s just free advertising….

A great picture and a great story- if you'd stayed down there they would have dubbed you Santiago from the Old Man and the Sea

Long story, but my dad had traveled in Mexico early in the Great Depression and loved Mexico. So for a long time he had had a hankering to explore further south. Eventually he was able to take a 1 year sabbatical from a teaching job and took us further south. Both mom and he taught grade school at the American school in San Jose. Meanwhile my brother and I were thrown into a local grade school in Heredia with zero Spanish and we had to learn on the fly,

I’ll never forget when the teacher asked for volunteers to tutor me in math... and every 10 year old girl's hand shot up wanting to help! Been hooked on Latinas ever since!

BTW Boco, holding up that big fish for the camera was just a good breaking in for holding up big ol' beavers later in life!

Neat pic.

That's a great picture, catch and memory.

Keith

Thanks Keith (and others). My sister-in-law just now gave me the pic. I didn't even know it still existed, but it had my dad's hand written note on the back with the location and date.

I’m going to Central American next week fishing

Do u still have the rabbits foot?

Can I borrow it?

That’s one of the best fishing pictures I’ve ever seen

Thanks sp....nope, no longer have the lucky rabbit's foot. Been downhill for me ever since. Good luck fishing!

Very nice

Great photo!!!

Great pic.
I’ve taken groups down and fished the Rio Colorado many times. Fabulous tarpon fishing.
There are some beauties swimming there, in the ocean near the river mouth as well if you time it right.

Osky
I concur about the Latina ladies. The bigger cities like San Jose they are getting a lot of Asian mixed in and the results are quite stunning.

Hey Osky....road trip!

PS: Out of curiosity, how close do you think my estimate of 85 lbs was? I really don't know.

Great picture and story! You may be human after all.

40 to 50 lb range

I think more than that. I’ve seen 40 lb chinooks and they were a lot smaller than that fish.

Tarpon weights are deceiving,,,

They gulp air for their swim bladder

Baby tarpon/juvenile top out at about 70lbs


How tall were you?? What was your waist?? In inches

Be honest lol


It’s a beauty!! I can only imagine it was an epic battle

I’m sorry Beaver….id really just be making a poor guess. Going by the picture I’d say it was monster size to you youngsters. ANY size tarpon is incredible fun and and spectacularly aerial.

My biggest is 164lbs but I’ve had clients boat bigger. The biggest I know of out of the Rio Colorado is/was 214lbs. I can’t say if that is the world line record. Word was there were true giants off the African west coast nation of Gibbon (sp) but due to violence over there I never made the trip.

I’ve fished a lot of species on this planet including granders off the Great Barrier Reef and if I had to pick one final fishing trip it would be for Tarpon.

Osky

Osky

Have you read “lords of the fly”?

It’s about big tarpon fishing, alittle blue marlin,,,,,quest for the world record in the 80’s

Great book!!

Sounds like you’ve lived it??

I don’t remember what I weighed back then. I was average weight and height for a kid 2 months shy of his 11th birthday. My brother Ken was smallish for his age of 14 years.

120lb Tarpon looks like it's as big as a horse.



An 85lbr looks a lot bigger than that one.




It's kinda like 30lb coons. Everyone has a 30lbr till you break out the scales.

People who've caught fish in 220's know that fish are not very dense.

No I’ve not read it, tho now I’m going to find it.
My best friends father was very well to do and took us two teens along on a lot of adventures. Formed a big part of my life. For all the fish I’ve hunted, there are a ton more I will not get around to in this life, and I envy those who get after them.

Osky