Peak Sailfish Season in Jaco

Report Date: April 28, 2015

Welcome to the Jaco & Los Suenos, Costa Rica!

The sailfish numbers have been on fire as expected over the past month. While December through April is our peak season for sailfish here, late March, and all of April has really proven to be the absolute peak. This time period is the absolute tops as far as consistently big sailfish numbers over the past few years. With no doubt, this is world class fishing here this time of year - large numbers of sailfish and perfect calm sunny conditions Costa Rica is famous for. It is the best place to come experience red hot offshore fishing with plenty of action.

On an average day spent focusing on sailfish, we'll see 20 to 30 bites per day, yielding 10 to 20 released fish. A good day will produce 30 to 50 bites, and days of 60 plus bites are very possible if you stay on top of them and keep up with the action. This gives plenty of opportunity for us to instruct and guide our guests on how to actually hook your own "hands on" using circle hooks and the "bait and switch" style of fishing - dropping baits back to fish coming up hot on teasers (hookless lures).

In addition to sailfish, there have been a decent number of blue marlin showing up offshore. The blues' numbers should get even better over the next couple months. May through July offers the best marlin fishing here, where we average 2 or 3 shots per day, and release 1 or 2 almost every day. Right now, we have been seeing about 4 to 6 per week, of which, we are releasing about half of them.

There have also been some good sized mahi-mahi hanging around offshore. Not in big numbers, but we have been catching almost one nice sized gaffer per day. These fish are 20 to 50 pounds and always a welcome bonus as clients may take some meat home, as well as, enjoy an acrobatic fight.

Yellowfin tunas have been sporadic, but during the next couple months they should begin showing up in good numbers. May through October is usually our peak tuna season, with mid-May to mid-July being the absolute best as far as consistent numbers of 40 to 80 schoolies (which are legal to keep and excellent eating). Last year, even though the marlin fishing was excellent, we had an usually slow season for tunas, possibly due to the EL Nino which was all over the news. Hopefully, they will make a strong appearance again this year and return to the daily catches numbers we are accustomed to.

Inshore fishing has also had a typical variety of species to pursue including rooster fish, jacks, snappers and groupers.

On another note, we did just finish competing the 2015 Offshore World Championship held in Marina Pez Vela, in Quepos Costa. And despite Captain Michael "MJ" Alligood scoring the most releases (89 scored sailfish releases in 4 days, but 2 additional releases were disqualified [DQ'ed] for filming errors - total should have been 91) and setting the current record for Most Releases Ever in the Offshore World Championship (OWC), our boat - EPIC - received 2nd place captain and crew, out of 71 boats (top captain award is based on top 3 days, dropping lowest score day). We actually had the same number of releases as the first place team who won on time, but because of DQ'ed fish, we also lost first place by 1 fish in the top 3 day accounting. Regardless of how it played out, it is a respectable finish in the prestigious tournament. It also marked Captain Michael " MJ" Alligood & EPIC's 2 time on stage in past 3 years - including a 1st place top captain crew and boat in 2013.

I will try to post a more detailed report of the tournament if I have the time. Thanks for reading and Tight Lines!

Captain Michael "MJ" Alligood
EPIC Sportfishing Costa Rica
[email protected]
USA call: 561-459-5355
CR call: 011-506-8718-2357

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