FROM PANGAS TO CUSTOMS

For most of Capt. Daniel Espinoza’s career, a life on the water was all he ever wanted. From a 10-year-old boy catching dock snappers with a hand line after school to running one of Costa Rica’s best-known charter boats to now heading up a busy operation building custom sport-fishers, his journey has been an interesting one.

Like most of the offshore-addicted among us, it was a family member who first inspired a young Espinoza to take up fishing. “My uncle was a commercial fisherman in Quepos, and my father used to take me down to the docks to fish all the time,” he says. “I really loved it. Every day after school, I’d be down there with a little spool of line in my pocket, fishing around the old pier or off the beach. There were a few pangas on the moorings—this is way back before the marina was built—and I used to say to myself, I’d like to do that one day.”

As with any calling, persistence pays, and soon, a young Espinoza was running outboards and washing boats for a company called Sport Fishing Costa Rica, which operated a fleet of 26-foot Strikes in Quepos. Eventually, the company let him run the boats from the dock back out to