I booked this trip for 4 family members, they went out at 7AM with Chino. He barely communicated with them and kept fishing the same circles with no activity. Finally went back to area they took off from and caught 2 small snappers and then were out of bait. Very uneventful expensive trip for a bologna sandwich.

Stay away from Chinos sport fishing. Just wasted hundreds of dollars on a half day trip they concluded with nothing caught. Boat is in poor condition, and instructions to get to the boat were even worse. Stay away, don’t let the fancy marina near by fool you. Never offered to reduce price or even a true apology for wasting my time.

Where do I even start with this atrocity of a “fishing experience.” We basically paid $800 to go out on a sketchy boat ride on a boat that was different from what was advertised and a “capatain” that had no idea what he was doing and was probably fresh out of highschool. We start off our trip by being taxied out into the Herradura bay to a boat that was completely different than what we were sold on. We got on the boat and realize that the “captain” is just a young boy. We looked past it though because I spent many years of my youth guiding hunters in South Texas so we figured he must have proved himself to be a pretty good boat captain.. Well we were wrong.. Inexperience is an understatement. We take off in the little boat out into the deeper waters for trolling but the boat is too small to handle the huge swells and the kid driving the boat was driving through them recklessly. I have fished the Gulf of Mexico my entire life and have never been seasick until I stepped foot on a boat with this kid. And not just me but all 3 of us got sick from his driving.. We finally get set up to start trolling and they keep us at the front of the boat the entire time while they were trolling in the back. One of the guides hooked a sailfish and let one of us reel it up to the boat but then they wouldn’t even let us hold it up for a picture and yelled at him for letting it touch the boat. They said it would cost us extra to bring it in the boat. This was pretty appauling since the main reason we went out there was for great pictures to keep for future memories and to catch some fish to eat on the trip. Neither of those things happened. Plus it was my birthday and all I had told them was that I wanted to catch a marlin or sailfish. Not reel one in that they caught. I also told them that we wanted to catch Mahi Mahi since it specifically said that we would on their fishing Booker listing. Well apparently the Mahi were “too small to catch.” But back to the “fishing.” So they start trolling again and one of the guides hooks another sailfish and let’s another one of us reel him in for a bit until the line broke. These were the only fish that we came anywhere close to the entire day. They continued trolling the waters with zero luck and eventually gave up and told us that they would take us closer inland so that we could fish off of the bottom. These guys pull up right next to a smaller charter and start fishing within 75 yards of them which is pretty ridiculous and rude. They drop sinkers to the bottom with 2 out of 5 poles and won’t let us fish. They wanted us to just sit there and watch them fish. So the impatient “captain” leaves there lines in the water for all of 3 minutes and then decides that we need to go to another spot. They drive us further inland and they drop line again and start fishing alone…again. They still wouldn’t let us fish. Again, the kid leaves his line in the water for maybe 3 minutes and then we are on to the next spot. We had no intentions on taking a pole from one of them if they hooked a fish. Casting and setting the hook are just as much of the experience as reeling the fish in. We just needed the guides there to cut bait for us and drive us around since we didn’t know the waters but instead we were treated like children that weren’t capable of holding a fishing pole. By this point we were livid and ready to go home so after watching them fish for 3 minutes off the bottom again and then deciding to drive to a different spot nearly back in the Herradura bay where we first started the trip so we told him to just take us home. By this point we had already decided that there was no way that we were going to pay full price for this “fishing trip” so we had plans on speaking with the kids boss and negotiating a more appropriate price for what we had to endure that day. We pull in to the bay and the kid starts asking us for all of the money before the taxi boat pulls up. I told him that we needed to speak with Chino first and he told me that I couldn’t. So basically we were going to be held hostage on his boat and not get to get on the taxi boat until we paid him in full and we were given zero opportunity to speak to his boss. We paid the kid for the horrible fishing experience and we left empty handed with no fish and a horrible taste in our mouth for Costa Rica. And now we have to fork out more money to get a real professional guide from the Los Suenos Marina. If you go to Herradura DO NOT I repeat DO NOT go look for a boat in the bay. Only fish with the professionals at the marina. This was just an expensive learning lesson and we are glad to be able to share the experience with other travelers so that they don’t have to go through what we went through. Also, we signed on with this company because they are highly reviewed on Fishing Booker. I think that it’s safe to say that there have been significant changes in their “company” and that they are no longer able to offer what they offered before.