Fishing Tackle

Hooks, sinkers, swivels and leaders for bait fishing:

cost the least of anything in the boat and lose the most fish when they are wrong. A J-hook needs a firm strike to set; a circle hook slides into the corner of the mouth as the fish swims off, which makes it the hook for live bait and for any fish you mean to release. Size follows the bait and the mouth, so the hook hidden in a sardine for corvina is a fraction of the one carrying a live blue runner for roosterfish. An egg-shaped running lead lets a fish take the bait without feeling the weight, and a ball-bearing swivel stops a bait twisting the line where a cheap barrel swivel often gives up. The fish decides the leader: sierra, barracuda and wahoo bite through nylon, so a short wire trace goes in front of the hook, while snook and snapper in clear water shy from wire and want fluorocarbon.

Spoons, reef jigs, poppers and soft plastics:

split by how they are fished more than by colour. From the beaches of Guanacaste, a silver spoon or a feathered jig wound back fast is what jacks and mackerel chase. Over rocky reefs, metal jigs dropped straight down take snapper and grouper; they carry assist hooks on a short cord at the head rather than a treble at the tail, so they foul the rocks less. Poppers and stickbaits are the surface lures for roosterfish and jacks, and soft plastics on a jig head work the river mouths of the southern Pacific for snook. Rapala, Yo-Zuri and Williamson are the names people search for, and the outfit to cast them is under fishing rods and reels. A branded hard lure runs from about ₡7,000 for a small minnow to around ₡20,000 for a big roosterfish popper, while copies cost a fraction of that. The difference sits in the hardware: a genuine lure ships with trebles and split rings rated for the fish it was built for, and a copy’s hooks straighten or rust after one trip. A used lure sells for much less than a new one because a careful buyer swaps the hooks anyway, so what you pay for is the body, the paint and the way it swims.

Tackle boxes for salt water and soft baits:

decide how long everything inside lasts. A box shut wet after a day at sea rusts every hook in it, and the rust travels from one treble to the next. Soft plastics left against hard lures melt into them, so they live in their own bags. Coolers and dry bags sit with fishing clothing and accessories.

A second-hand tackle box from the coast:

gets checked tray by tray. Orange stains in a compartment mean hooks rusted there, and the lures beside them will show rust at the hook eye or split ring. Drag each hook point lightly across a fingernail: a sharp one catches, a dull one slides. Look where the lip of a diving lure meets the body, because a crack there makes it spin instead of swim. Chewed paint only proves the lure caught fish. Soft plastics fused into a lump go in the bin, and old nylon that has turned chalky snaps under a light pull. Copies of Rapala and Yo-Zuri lures give themselves away with blurred printing, crooked eyes and hooks already dull in the packet.

Selling a box of corvina rigs or reef jigs:

works best in lots that match one kind of fishing: the bait box, the jigging set, the tray of surface lures. Photograph the lures on a plain surface with the hooks in view, and say which still have their original hooks. Give the weight printed on each jig and the line rating on each spool instead of calling them heavy or light, and rinse the box in fresh water and let it dry open before the photos. Whoever meets you in Puntarenas to collect it will turn every lure over to look at the hooks, so take out any rusted treble or say in the ad that it is there.