I’d like to thank my old friend Capt. James Parker on the 61′ Viking “Blue Eagle” and the owners Brad Jones and Stewart Jones for having me down for the first leg of the Los Sueños Signature Triple Crown Series. Cecelia, Capt. James’ wife was close to having their third child and I was around as a stand-by captain just in case the baby came during the event. James and Cecelia’s new baby girl Layla waited until after the tournament to make an appearance. Congrats y’all!! That meant my duties consisted of nothing but rigging a few baits with James’ crew Cameron Roberts and Juan Carlos and just kicking it.

Once again, Los Suenos Triple Crown breaks release records. Average 56 sails per boat.

Summary

A clinic was put on by Capt. John Bayliss & Team “Tarheel”, Capt. Scotty Jones & Team “Wire We Here” and Capt. Ronnie Fields & Team “Trophy Box”. Congratulations on an awesome first leg of the series!!!!

Observation 1

If you’re going to show well in this series, you need to bring your “A” game and as much dead bait angling and crew experience as possible. To win this thing, you need every rod in the hands of an angler ALL THE TIME. Your tournament team needs to have all the tricks to turn a single hookup into a multiple hookup.

Observation 2

The lads looking like they’re about to rob a bank in Buff headgear

Fishing January – March in Costa Rica is like fishing on the face of the sun. Managing the comfort of the North American anglers coming from wintertime conditions back home definitely needs some thought and consideration (that is, if you expect the pasty white anglers to stand in the pit with a rod in their hands all day). There have been huge amounts of money and countless hours spent on designing AC systems for the cockpit. In most cases, all that cold air love is very mezzanine-centric. In my experience, simple airflow and lots of it seems to work best. My best friend for comfort has been multiple Blue Blower type units plugged into a GFI, blowing on your anglers standing in the pit.

red squid dredge

Observation 3

I noticed lots of red squid dredges hanging from hooked up boats. I know the red squid dredge on the “Blue Eagle” was getting the business.

Fishing got rigger-to-rigger in the super packs.

Observation 4

Leg 1 was about the custom boats.

1st Place – “Tarheel” 47’ Scarborough

2nd Place – “Wire we Here” 61’ Garlington

3rd Place -“Trophy Box” 57’ Island Boat Works

1st Place Angler – “Sea Angel” 63’ F&S

Obervation 5

I’d also like to mention the incredible job done by John Bowen from Elite Diesel, Capt. James Parker and his crew Cameron and Juan Carlos. These guys worked around the clock to swap out transmissions on the 61’ Viking “Blue Eagle” in just over 2 weeks to be ready for the tournament. That, my friends, is a feat that would be hard to accomplish even at the Viking Service Center much less Costa Rica.

Obsveration 6

I haven’t had the time to fish an event in this series in quite a while. But I must say, the tournament organizers got their game on. And Los Sueños just seems to be getting better and better.