Crocodile Bay Employee of the Month – Fishing Captain Anthony Santos

Anthony Santos is one of our fishing captains at Crocodile Bay Resort and he has been working at Crocodile Bay for the better part of 14 years. He is also Olimpia’s son and is originally from Panama.

In Panama his specialty was the ‘Art of Fly fishing’ and he honored his skill while working for a fly-fishing company. From the very beginning at Crocodile Bay, Anthony absorbed as much fishing knowledge from the other captains as he could. They taught him how to catch roosterfish and the other inshore Costa Rican fish species. But it was the colorful roosterfish that impressed him the most, because of its power and will to fight.

Anthony doesn’t just love fly-fishing and catching roosterfish, he generally loves fishing all around the Osa Peninsula. He says that every day you can have new exciting fishing experiences in the Golfo Dulce, as well as going after the big billfish offshore from the Osa Peninsula. One of his most memorable experiences was fishing with one of our returning guests, Andy. They raised 7 marlins (including two blue and one black marlin) and hooked around 20 plus dorado with plenty of tuna in one single day. There were other boats around them who weren’t catching much at all, but Anthony and Andy were on a roll.

Anthony is frequently mentioned in our reviews on TripAdvisor. In a review from February 2019, they write: “TIP: for inshore fishing ask to fish with Anthony, the roosterfish whisperer!”, and another review from March 2019 states:” The roosterfish was pretty special. No one was catching them so everyone was going offshore. Alan asked captain Anthony to take me out and prove them all wrong. We did just that by hooking 11 roosters and landing 9, with the biggest being a 70-pound beast. It was a long and wonderful fight. Anthony has been fishing them for 22 years and this was the largest one he has ever landed in one of his boats. I haven’t seen a captain that excited over a fish in a very long time. I will certainly treasure the experience.”