Yellowfin Tuna Present, Mahi Absent

Report Date: January 1, 2016

After our hot run of marlin in November, we had a spotty billfish bite early December, struggling to get 5 bites a day for a week or so. Luckily, our billfish numbers improved mid-December. Getting 10 to 15 bites per day was the norm, with 20 plus sailfish bites on the best days.

Some of the larger, faster private sport fishing boats have managed 20+ sailfish releases over past couple weeks. We must be a little spoiled here because it still feels a little slower than it was year, which was the 4th year in a row of record breaking sailfish numbers.

I'm not sure if El Nino is causing the difference this year, but our mahi-mahi run has still not materialized. The mahi-mahi - or dorado, as it is locally called - usually peaks in November & December, but they have been very scarce.

On the positive side, yellowfin tunas have been here in large numbers and very common the past few months - whereas they are usually very uncommon here on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast this time of year. They usually are most common May to October, but there seems to be several pods of them all over. We are locating them on just about every day, over past few months.

Some days, they don't want to bite but most days, they are hungry. Jigging and trolling cedar plugs behind the boat produce 20 to 40 lb. schoolies very consistently. Live bait with fluorocarbon seems to do the trick on bigger ones, 50 to 150 lb. The hard part is getting live bait which has been very scarce inshore lately. So, the bet hope is to find a log offshore with some baitfish. A 2 to 4 pound skipjack works best for larger tunas, but blue runners and goggle eyes also do the trick.

Inshore, we've had some very good days bottom fishing in 300-400 ft. - silky snappers 12-18 pounds and snowy grouper 5-15 pounds - which all are excellent eating.

We have also caught a few very nice large rooster fish targeting trophy around Isla Negritos using live skipjack as bait.

In the next few months, the sailfish numbers should increase, with the occasional scattered marlin around. Hopefully these yellowfin tuna will also stay around. Mahi-mahi? Should be here, maybe they will show.

Inshore should be very good this month, and getting better in February and March. It's a very good time for Cubera and other snappers, and Roosterfish. Getting blue runners for bait looks like it will be tough, but should be plenty of skipjack bonitos around. Be sure to fish on boat that has tuna tubes.

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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