The fishing here in Costa Rica last month picked up pretty much right where January left off with plenty of marlin still around and good sailfish numbers the first half of the month. The Costa Rica Fishing Report – February 2019 says fishing was consistently good, as long as you could locate the fish you were in for a day full of action. The problem was there were several reports from some charter boats who only fished 20-25 miles out and suffered through long days with little action, but for the boats who weren’t afraid to burn gas to find the fish the action was red hot 35-45 miles out. Three boats completed grand slams last month out of the Los Suenos Resort & Marina and the Marina Pez Vela in Quepos – including the very rare Super Slam by our friends at Hoo’s Your Daddy.
The second half of the month the sailfish bite went wild and reminded everyone why Costa Rica earned the nickname “billfish capital of the world” with several 20+ fish days and most boats finishing with double digit sailfish. This is fairly “by the book” as typically we see the most marlin in the months of Dec-Jan-Feb and then sometime in Feb the sailfish bite explodes and the marlin bite drops off. It looks that that happened here right around the full moon on Feb 19th as the top boats were seeing 20+ sailfish a day.

Better evidence of that was the perfectly timed second leg of the Los Suenos Triple Crown took place from Feb 28 to March 2nd. The first day the fleet put up record-setting numbers with 742 billfish released by 45 boats (737 sails and just 5 marlin). To put that in perspective – last month in Leg 1 the fleet released 648 billfish total for the three day tournament. The second day the anglers & sailfish both moved a bit slower with just 580 released, but the tournament finished with a bang as another 741 bills were released on Day 3. In total 2,063 billfish were released (2,042 sailfish & 21 marlin) in the three day tournament with Team Galati taking home the crown.

Last month even more 200+ lb tuna were caught again last month. As mentioned in last month’s report, the new purse seining laws here have seemed to have an immediate impact on Costa Rica’s tuna fishery as the last three years have been phenomenal. In addition to yellow-fin tuna, trophy sized mahi were caught on a daily basis and even a few wahoo made it to the gaff. The inshore fishing remained strong as well with more anglers landing jacks, mackerel, and snapper on a daily basis along with plenty of 20-50 lb roosterfish to send anglers home happy.

Last but not least, the inshore fishing continued to be very good with anglers catching tons of jacks, more seabass, a few large snook, and plenty of roosterfish. Over on the Caribbean Coast, high seas (thanks to all these massive winter storms back home) made the tarpon fishing in Costa Rica challenging but there were still plenty of tarpon jumped in the river mouths. Lowell Somsen, fishing with my good buddy Primo who many of you know, landed one of the biggest tarpon I’ve seen in my 14 years here – a true dinosaur that was pushing 200 lbs.

Below is the full Costa Rica Fishing Report – February 2019 with highlights from the best boats each day.

Feb 1 – Gamefisher II – 600 lb black marlin, 2 for three on sailfish, 2 dorado, 5 tunas
Feb 2 – Constellation – 6 for 10 on sails and a couple tuna
Feb 3 – Reel Fly – 6 sails released and 4 dorado
Feb 4 – Good Day Too – 1 sailfish, 8 dorado, 6 yellow-fin tuna
Feb 5 – Open Fly – 1 blue marlin, 7 sailfish, 2 mahi
Feb 6 – Epic – 1 blue marlin, 4 sailfish, 5 dorado
Feb 7 – Good Day Too – 4 sailfish, 4 YFT, 6 mahi
Feb 8 – Pescadora – 3 sailfish, 7 dorado, and 10 yellow-fin tuna
Feb 9 – Good Day Too – GRAND SLAM – 1 striped marlin, 1 blue marlin, 5 sailfish
Feb 10 – Sunny One – 2 blue marlin, 6 sailfish, and 2 mahi
Feb 11 – Hoo’s Your Daddy – SUPER SLAM – 1 Striped, 1 Black, 2 Blue Marlin, 5 Sailfish
Feb 12 – Spanish Fly – 5 sailfish and 1 dorado
Feb 13 – Open Fly – 1 blue marlin, 10 sailfish, 2 mahi
Feb 14 – Spanish Fly – 1 blue marlin, 4 sails, 2 mahi, 2 YFT
Feb 15 – Tuna Bite – 1 blue marlin, 6 for 11 on sails, 2 dorado
Feb 16 – Pescadora – 6 sailfish released
Feb 17 – Good Day Too – 9 sailfish
Feb 17 – Spanish Fly – 15 sailfish released
Feb 18 – Open Fly – 12 sails & 1 dorado
Feb 19 – Super Fly – 11 sailfish released
Feb 20 – Pescadora – GRAND SLAM – 1 black marlin, 1/2 blue marlin, 3/4 sails, + 2 YFT!
Feb 21 – Gamefisher II – 5 for 7 on sails and a mahi
Feb 22 – Good Day Too – 4 sailfish, 4 tuna, 1 wahoo
Feb 23 – Open Fly – 8 sailfish released
Feb 24 – Constellation – 18 for 25 including 4 doubles!
Feb 25 – Pescadora – 7 sails and a dorado
Feb 26 – Good Day Too – 21 sailfish released
Feb 27 – Real Fly – 10 sails
Feb 28 – Spanish Fly – 21 sails released

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