Green Season 2022

Report Date: August 25, 2022

Green Season 2022

The 'green season' typically refers to May - Oct., because it does rain and is a bit cooler, a lot greener and lots of stuff in bloom this time of year, as opposed to our tourism high and dry season, November - April when it rains less, and is dryer and sunnier (especially Jan -April) and is busier time for tourists escaping colder areas.

This year it started early and had above average amounts of rain starting late march, and continuing on until the current time here in Aug.

The excess rain made this May and June a bit difficult with a large green and red tide bloom extending far offshore. There was lots of floating debris but most really fresh with nothing on it, no bait, not tripletail, no mahi on most of it, these conditions made billfishing difficult as they typically don't like green or dirty water. There would be some isolated pockets of cleaner blue water pushing in some days, or current edges with color changes and debris were you could find some mahi on them and a few sailfish or marlin nearby; some days lots of schoolie mahi could be caught cruising along the current edge and occasionally little football yellowfins.

Offshore Yellowfin tunas were the hero for these couple months, they didn't seem to mind the dirty water and really made the day when you could find them, usually great action, readily eating artificial lures or live baits if you could get them.

Slow trolling around the pods of spinner dolphins while jigging a red rubber 5" worm on a lead jig head has been the ticket lately landing fish averaging 40-50#.

We've had lots of luck casting poppers and stickballs to them lately, like Shimano orca series stickball or Yo-Zuri hydro popper or sashimi bull. Catching tunas while casting popper on spinning gear is about the most fun fishing you can do, but can be a brutal fight on stand up spin tackle.

July seemed to give us a break and some renewed hope for good fishing with less ran and a few weeks of blue water pushing in bring some of the billfish bite we would expect for this time of year, we had a few days of getting 6 or 7 marlin bites along with some mahi, tunas and/or sails.

Inshore we have had above average roosterfish action the past few months, some of the most consistently good fishing for roosters I've seen in several years, there has been lots of baits schools (blue runners) across the Gulf of Nicoya around Tambor, Isla Tortuga, and Isla Negritos. More bait than I've seen in several years, makes it easy fishing being able to catch bait and just put them out and fish around the schools, with really good action most days, able to catch jacks, mackerels, occasion snappers, and our main target roosterfish. Some days you have too weed through lots of jack to land a few rooster but the rooster are there in good numbers and nice quality of fish size wise, most in the 20 to 60 pound range.

Looking forward, sept - December last year was excellent marlin fishing, in fact all last high season (Jan., Feb., March and April) was a little slow for sailfish but the marlin fishing was above average the whole time.

I always recommend November and December as some of the best months to come and target marlin, it's usually the most consistent time and we have good numbers of blues and stripes offshore, as well as occasional black marlin out there and at the reef inshore.

November and December is the best time for a chance at catching a GRAND SLAM - 3 different billfish species in one day.

It's also peak season for mahi-mahi, which should be plentiful these months; sometimes there can be so many mahi, we actually try to avoid them but just pulling teasers and marlin lures rather than stopping every few minutes catching another mahi which gets in the way of marlin fishing. Even trying to avoid them we often land 8-10 nice ones.

Yellowfin tunas have become pretty much a year round option, thanks to the 2015 tuna decree that pushed commercial tuna ships 45 miles offshore, which was recently expanded to push them out to a 90 mile boundary. This has really help our tuna numbers, though there may be a day or week here and there where nobody finds them.

Please check out my Facebook and Instagram pages to keep up with more recent reports and photos, sometimes I just don't have the time to write detailed reports and forecasts.

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And feel free to call or write me whit any questions you may have ab out planning you dream trip to Costa Rica.

My USA number 561-459-5355 for call or text, rings on my cell down here. Or email [email protected]

I can help with transportation, lodging, or lining up any type of boat or fishing needs you have. I have some good deals on Los Suenos condos.

Thanks and tight lines until next time,
Captain Michael MJ Alligood
561-459-5355

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