Swimming With a Mighty Sailfish (or Two)

Author and camerman, Thaddius Bedford

Filming fishing shows may not sound exciting, yet every time I get together with Wolf Creek Productions, I find myself in the middle of rare and bizarre wildlife interactions that I never thought possible. I’ve just returned from Costa Rica where we shot an episode of the program “The Wildlife,” which will air on The Outdoor Channel. This trip proved no different than any other and brought upon us its own unique adventure.

The team left the snow of Northern Michigan for sunny Costa Rica and the Los Sueños Resort. Los Sueños is located on the Pacific Ocean with a tropical rainforest backdrop and mountains that rise right out of the water. As usual the first afternoon was spent unpacking the mountains of boxes of equipment required to shoot a High Definition television show.

Right: Beautiful Los Suenos Resort

At six the next morning we were ready to board a 38-foot, custom-built, offshore fishing boat called Tres Amigos. Our Captain, Tim (Timmy) Blair, is a bleach-blond surfer who came to Costa Rica from the States chasing waves, fell in love with the country and never left. He is one of those people you love to work with because Timmy loves what he is doing and it shows in both his attitude and the attitude of his crew. As the boat pulled out of the harbor we got a real look at where we were staying. It felt like we were looking at a scene right out of Jurassic Park, with the rain forest covered mountains rising straight out of the Pacific.

We motored for two hours and covered almost fifty miles before Capt. Timmy backed the throttles down and started preparing lines. I have to say that I’ve been a lot of places around the world filming fishing shows, but I have never seen an ocean so alive with wildlife: sting rays, sailfish, thresher sharks and bottlenose dolphin were jumping everywhere I looked.

A 150 pound sailfish

Schools of spinner dolphin easily reached numbers in the thousands. The water was boiling in a feeding frenzie of jacks and tuna. It was just amazing. We spent all day fishing for sailfish and marlin and ended up landing seven sails. However, the fishing community in Costa Rica doesn’t believe in killing is resource. It was refreshing to learn that there is a strict catch and release policy and the fishermen actively police themselves and other boats in the area.

Cobalt blue, 85-degree water, clear as a bell and I am in the middle of it all filming six of the seven sailfish that we caught that day. What a rush! This was the first time I had ever been in the water with a billfish and I have to admit it was a little intimidating to be swimming next to a 150 pound fish with a three foot sword for a nose. Of course, as I dropped into the ocean the crew tells me that sailfish can swim at speeds of over 70 miles-per-hour. Yikes. After filming a couple of these big fish, I forgot all about the potential for danger and got lost in their absolute beauty and grace. Their colors are so vivid, while their strength is magnificent. In just two kicks they could be out of site and that was when they were still hooked. To see it all from underwater was a rarity, but little did I know at the time that the best was yet to come.

Right: Thaddius quietly swims closer to get the shot

The next day, we spent a good part of the morning trolling with no luck. After four hours we spotted a huge school of spinner dolphin. I decided that I had spent enough time waiting for footage of fish and talked a reluctant Capt. Timmy into pulling in all the hooks and taking me over to the dolphin. The crew reeled in the lines, but left the teasers out. The teasers, as Capt. Timmy explained to me, had no hooks; they are long lures to attract the billfish. We pulled the boat over to the dolphins and motored along, filming the dolphins all around us.

When we got enough topside footage, I rolled off the back of the boat as it kept on motoring hoping this would allow me to film the dolphins swimming past. I hit the water, pressed record, turned around and right in front of me, not eight feet away sat a sailfish.I couldn’t believe my eyes, or my luck. The teaser moves past us and the sailfish spun around and was all over it. Topside the crew had seen the sail chasing the teaser, so they cast a baited line and that the fish immediately took. I was swimming as fast as I could to keep the action in the viewfinder and couldn’t believe what was happening right in front of me. What I didn’t realize was that there was another sailfish watching the fight, too. This second sailfish put on quite a show for me; tail walks, jumps and runs right at the camera. It took about twenty minutes to land and release the fish and I caught all of it on film.

Black marlin. Costa Rica has a strict catch and release policy.

At this point, I really didn’t think it possible for my day to get any better, but Costa Rica had one more surprise for this cameraman. Twenty minutes after our sailfish encounter, I was still catching my breath, when we hooked into a 550 pound, fourteen-foot black marlin. It took almost forty-give minutes of fight until we finally got the fish close enough to the boat for to film. I have to say that I was more than a little reluctant to get close to this big guy, however I still shot some good footage of it. Again, it was great to see that all the fish we caught were released immediately and no harm came to any wildlife.

This trip is a perfect example of what has happened to me time and time again in my life. No matter how many times you do something or how mundane something might seem you just never know when something incredible is going to unfold right in front you. That just reinforces the fact that you can’t experience anything sitting on your couch. Even the same old dive site can offer up an amazing experience, but you have to be there if you’re going get to see it!