Forced, by us, to select his favourites from over 400 species he has caught on fly, here’s what Jeff Currier chose from Central America:

CENTRAL AMERICA – GUAPOTE

“The most fabulous fishing happened in Costa Rica in 1993. I actually went there with a friend with the intention of catching some sailfish from the rocks with my fly rod. I had a connection in San Jose, an older guy from Texas who had shopped in our store. He was a well-known guy in the industry, Jimmy Nicks. He was quick to say that we did not have the money for sailfish, but he said what we did have the money for was freshwater fish. Up north at Lake Arenal there’s a fish called Guapote, nicknamed the Rainbow Bass. It’s a very cool fish. Jimmy hooked us up with his friend, this old guy Peter and when we met him, smoking his pipe in his office, above him was a mount of a guapote which was at least 8lb. The next day he took us out on his boat to where he caught that fish. He told us that he had only caught a handful that big in the twenty years he had been living there and they were very rare. But goddamn if we didn’t go out the next day and catch some nice ones. My final fish that day was an 8lb guapote. By the end of the week I caught two more big ones. That’s when I first learned I had the golden horseshoe up my ass. At least that’s what Peter told me.”

For Jeff’s other favourite fish from oceans and regions across the globe, check out his story in issue 15 of The Mission.