Green Season Variety Of Action, Los Suenos Costa Rica Fishing Report

Report Date: July 21, 2017

Offshore has had pretty good marlin bite, which is normal for this time of year, mostly blue and striped marlin being caught offshore. Most trips we have been seeing 1 to 3 though there are some trips we don't see one.

On a really good day, you might find a log, floating debris, rope, or a current line accumulating wood and trash that has a bunch of bait like bonitos or juvenile mahi-mahi and baby yellowfin tunas. These species are food for marlin and provide and ideal environment to find marlin. Finding the right piece, on a good day, this time of year, can provide multiple marlin bites. There have been lots of logs over past several weeks with small mahi and small baby yellowfin tuna, and often marlin.

Sailfish - while the green season (May- October) is the off season for sailfish we usually still see a few per day, 1-5 sailfish bites trolling around is the norm. However, it can be much better on random days if you find a good bite and work the area.

We have had an unusually good sailfish bite for this time of year we had a few days in the past week we had 10-12 sailfish bites a day working the corner. The fish have been concentrated along the edge of the drop off and were biting very good, coming up in doubles. Not sure how long that will continue, I would say 3-5 sailfish bites a day is more common.

Bigger tunas, traveling with pods of porpoises, have been very good over the past several months, but there are some days here and there where nobody finds them. When we do find them, 20-40 pounders are usually plentiful and pretty easy to catch on artificial lures such as cedar plugs or rubber squids. Live bait helps fool larger ones, which can be over 100 pounds.

Mahi-Mahi / Dorado - we have been seeing TONS of very small mahis around floating debris (along with small tunas). Most are too small to harvest but do provide great light tackle action for kids or plentiful action for fly rods. There are some bigger ones around but the tiny ones are sometimes buy the hundreds around floating debris. Hopefully this is a good indicator that we will have a plentiful adults in the season ahead. The peak time for mahi-mahi is usually October - December.

If you want Wahoo, we can go fish the 26, there usually are some around this time of year, not too big mostly 20 -30 pound fish but sometimes bigger ones, it can be spotty. The best days are generally early morning right around a full moon during these green season months. If the wahoo are not biting at the 26 there are more options. Sometimes there will be small mahi-mahi and small yellowfin tuna caught trolling in that area as well and occasional sailfish or even marlin.

I have not tried yet this June or July, but last year in July and August we had a lot of success in the same reef area live baiting for black marlin which is probably the coolest fish you can catch around here. Most in the area will be 400-500 pounds and tough fighters with some spectacular jumps.

Cubera snapper, jacks and amberjacks are also sometimes possible in the same area. I usually like to keep and open mind as to what I will target on any particular day, if something is not working we do something else.

Deep drop bottom fishing is also good option to spend some time, it has been very good most days over past couple months.

Snowy grouper, yellow cheek grouper, longfin sea bass, grey tilefish, rosefish and silky snapper are possible depending where you fish.

The silky snapper have been very good compared to last year. Lots of small ones around 200 ft. and some nice 12-18 pound ones getting caught out in 300-400 ft. Most of the deep dropping is dead bait, chopped squid on 3 hook dropper rigs, but we have done very well on silky snapper a few days when our guests wanted to spend the day jigging with butterfly jigs.

A little closer to shore, in the 80 ft. and shallower range, we have had good action for rooster fish of all sizes, and cubera snapper, jacks, mackerel and occasionally small yellowfin tunas can be caught in the same nearshore reef areas.

Over the next few months, expect more of the same variety. Expect more mahis starting to show up and be plentiful in October - December. Striped marlin should also become more common catches as they are usually here in good numbers between September - January, along with blue marlin offshore. Tunas have been very consistent year-round for a couple years now - so I expect them to stay good. Large numbers of sailfish should begin pushing into the area sometime between November and January.

Until next time, Tight lines!
Captain Michael Alligood
EpicFishingCostaRica.com
[email protected]
US call 561-459-5355 (With voicemail)
CR cell and text 011-506-8718-2357

Back to Main Fishing Report Page