We Rode a Famous Hooker Three Days Straight

On our first trip to Casa Vieja Lodge in 2020 we booked the Finest Kind, a luxurious 40’ Whiticar operated by Captain Nicho Alvarenga and run flawlessly by his crew. We reserved the Finest Kind again this year, but due to an unlikely series of coincidences we ended up on Casa Vieja’s newest boat, a 48-footer named The Hooker. They’d just purchased it a few weeks earlier from Captain Skip Smith and driven it up the coast from Costa Rica. 

We spent the first fishing day on The Hooker with Captain Alvarenga again, and then he had to attend to some other business so Captain David Salazar, CVL’s owner, took over. All three days were once again exceptional, which is what we’ve come to expect from them. 

On the van ride from the marina to the lodge the final day, another guest, much more experienced in the billfish world than our group, mentioned that we’d been fortunate to ride in such a famous boat. The Hooker, he said, was legendary. If it had been something from the bass world, like the jet boat that Roland Martin used to win on the Connecticut River, or the crankbaits that Clunn relied on in ’84 at Pine Bluff, I might have known the history, but in this case I was out of my depth. Indeed, Salazar later told us that the boat had a storied history, and that Captain Smith had written a book about her travels. 

When I got home, my friend Elliott Stark, who is my interpreter and guide into that salty world, expressed a bit of shock and jealousy that we’d lucked onto The Hooker without even knowing its significance and history. He said it was one of his all-time favorite rides and he’d spent many enjoyable days fishing from her.

With all of the buzz attending this boat among people who knew what they were talking about, I looked up the book about the boat upon our return and found out that we were indeed fortunate to have lucked into such an incredible opportunity.

The 44 sailfish that we landed over three days were just a miniscule fraction of the fish that have been landed from her decks (including 87 world records, but the adventure was so much more colorful than that. Towed by a mothership called (appropriately) The Madam, they fished Africa and Australia as well as South America and the Caribbean, and experienced more than their share of mishaps and debauchery along the way. The book is available from Amazon and I intend add to it to my backlogged reading list, right behind Monte Burke’s Lords of the Fly. In the meantime, check out this excerpt published in Marlin Magazine. 

Later this year, the Casa Vieja team will be taking The Hooker back to Costa Rica, where she will be set up for multi-day, multi-marlin excursions. We haven’t booked our dates yet, but based on what I’ve heard and read I’m also positive we’ll get on top of her again. If you’d like to learn more about Casa Vieja or book a trip, CLICK HERE.