Crocodile Bay Adventures

by Rob Munn, Lansing SCI Member and Avid Outdoorsman

I ran into a booth for Crocodile Bay at the Sheep Show in Reno Nevada several years ago and talked to them for a bit. It sounded like a fun trip, and I stashed it in my “someday” file. Fast forward a couple years and I kept seeing packages from them in different auctions, which got me more interested. I decided I would take my wife on the trip, and I started bidding. I won a package trip at the Lansing Michigan SCI online auction, and now it was really going to happen. We planned our trip for early December 2025. Crocodile Bay has an associate that helps book everything from our room to our fishing dates, tour trips, airport transfers and domestic flight in Costa Rica. Cecile is her name and she was GREAT!

Heading to Crocodile Bay

December came quickly and we were on a plane headed for San Jose, Costa Rica. However, dense fog wouldn’t let us land at 8:45 as planned. After circling, we needed to go land in Managua, Nicaragua to refuel. We sat in the plane for 1.5 hours and then the pilot came on and said we would be going back to San Jose soon. We finally landed at midnight. I had paid for the shuttle package which would have a driver waiting to take us to the hotel that night, but I was afraid he would not be there almost 4 hours later, but there he was! We got a short night’s sleep, and they drove us back to the airport for our flight to Puerto Jimenez. It was a short 40-minute flight in a grand cessna, which seats 10 people.

 The van was ready to take us to the resort upon landing. Botanika Resort runs the lodging, and they had arranged for us to check in early. We took a quick nap before our first tour, the chocolate farm. This was a very interesting tour, showing us the process it takes to go from cocoa beans to chocolate, and taught us a lot about all the plants and trees etc in the area.

Our First Day of Fishing

The next morning, we were up early for our first day of fishing. We met our captain, Melvin, and deckhand, Esteban, and boarded the 33’ foot strike boat. We chose to go offshore and chase tuna and billfish. After catching a bunch of baitfish, we headed out to the open ocean. We spotted sea birds and headed that way to find a feed going on. We dropped our baitfish down, but the feed moved on, and we had to reposition. This happened several times and then a tuna took my bait but got off after 15-20 seconds.

Immediately Megan’s bait got hammered, and the fight was on. Unfortunately, the line broke after a couple minutes. A third tuna took the other bait right when Megan’s line broke. Both of us fought this powerful fish and eventually I got this 83 pound tuna in the boat.

Worn out from fighting the tuna, we decided to troll for billfish. I opened my lunch and took one bite of my sandwich when a sailfish came up chasing the bait! I picked up the rod and flipped the drag lever, and the sailfish ripped out line on a massive run taking him way out. I wondered how we would ever get him in, but then I was able to slowly start to gain on the fish. As he got close to the boat, he started jumping like crazy like I’ve seen them do in videos. After an impressive aerial show he tired out and came to the boat. I never thought I would catch one of these beautiful fish, but now I was holding the bill and admiring an amazing fish! We hooked into one more either marlin or sailfish briefly but the line broke and we never saw this fish. Amazing first day of fishing! We got to eat a delicious meal from our tuna that night at the restaurant there.

Rainforest Tour

We did a rainforest tour the next morning where we saw all four species of monkeys that are in Costa Rica, a couple sloths, anteater, iguanas, and so many different beautiful birds. That afternoon we did a kayak tour in the rain, but it was lots of fun also.

2nd Day of Fishing 

Second day fishing we chose inshore and went after roosterfish primarily. After a little bit we got into the fish and caught 8 roosterfish, 4 snapper (3 different species), a barracuda and a jack crevalle. Most of the fish were caught in a 2 hour stretch. 

We spent our last day at the private beach that Botanika has. It was a beautiful spot and a nice relaxing time to end our trip. We had a great time and would highly recommend this trip.