Your Guide To Costa Rica Fishing
At Fishing Costa Rica, you will be treated like family and will have your every need catered to. We provide fully bilingual guides and captains as well as top of the line equipment and boats. We are always ready to personally help plan your trip and loves to talk fishing, so best of all, if you have any questions, you will have a professional guide and life-long angler ready to help.
Costa Rica fishing is about the dancing of the sailfish on the surface with lightning speed, and the powerful big mean marlin that attracts fishermen far and wide to these awesome Costa Rican waters. Costa Rican sailfish are among the largest fish in the world, averaging over 100 lbs
You can fish Costa Rica waters for 12 months out of the year with Dec. through July being the top months. In these months it is not uncommon to raise 10-20 to the boat on a given day with an exceptional day seeing as many as 30-40+. You must move fast and make no mistakes, because once he senses something is wrong he is gone, never to be seen again. This is why it is important to have an experienced captain like Dan Ross!
While March, April, May, September, and October are some of the best fishing months for tarpon, this fish bites all year and after decades of tracking these monsters, our team knows exactly when and where to find them, so don’t hesitate to book you a tarpon trip during your Costa Rica vacation.
Check out our Costa Rica Fishing Packages or Contact Dan For Additional Information. Coming to Costa Rica is one of the best decisions you can make when planning your Tarpon fishing vacation.
Even More!
Costa Rica Fly Fishing
Costa Rica is known for an unbelievable experience when it comes to the opportunity fly fisherman get. Chasing billfish offshore with a fly rod has got be one of the most thrilling experiences any fishermen could ever encounter. Imagine a 100+ pound sailfish or even a 300-400+ blue marlin light up with its neon blue lights at the transom, as hungry as a back yard bull dog that has had nothing to eat for a week. Sailfish are caught 6-15 times on a normal day and twice that on a good day. Quite often they come into the teasers in pairs or more. I have seen many times 4, 6, 8 or more immediately behind the boat in casting range. One day in particular we witnessed 90+ sailfish around the boat. Many times we had all fly rods hooked up; we were once fighting 3 and had 2 more jumping, biting at the teasers off of the outriggers as they were slapping the water at the side of the boat. We managed to land 12 that day, all on fly rods.
Sailfish are a lot easier to hook than marlin because they just aren’t quite as smart as a marlin. Sailfish are much more plentiful than marlin and normally come to the teaser in numbers. You may get 2 or 3 shots at a sailfish compared to one at a marlin in Costa Rica. Blue marlin average between 300-500 pounds, and I have seen them up to 900 lbs. The black marlin will run 400-1000 lbs. You might see a few marlin every day out fishing in Costa Rica. Fishing with Bobby McGuiness a few years ago we raised 17 blue marlin to the boat and in a 4 day trip landed 9 of them on conventional gear.
In addition to billfish offshore we quite often catch dorado and tuna with our fly rods. We have landed many Dorado over 50 lbs with fly rods and as many as 12 under 1 single sheet of plywood without putting the engine back in gear. Tuna is another great fish to throw flies to. You may come along a school of Tuna from 5-20 lbs and just watch them go crazy over your flies. I have awesome little tube flies they love to chase. I have seen many times where we will land 20+ tuna in a few minutes on our fly rods.
Fresh Water Fishing
We offer unique adventures into the northern most areas of Costa Rica to fish for giant tarpon, guapote, and machaca. The tarpon in the Rio Frio/Cano Negro drainage are known to grow over 100 kilos. Cano Negro is part of a national park, and is a mini Florida Everglades. It has been scientifically proven that close to 15% of these tarpon never return to the sea; an anomaly for tarpon. These giants hang out in the rivers and lagoons and grow large. We will be fishing 10-12 wt. rods with 100lb shock tippet.
We will be traveling by car or plane to the far north country of Costa Rica next to the Nicaraguan border on the Rio Frio River and Cano Negro lagoons located in the Cano Negro National Wildlife Refuge. There you will see much of Costa Rica’s wildlife, including monkey’s, birds, and other critters. There we will be spending long days fishing for the magnificent tarpon. We can also travel to the Rio Dulce River for the machaca. This is a very adventurous trip as we will be staying in local hotels, eating local food and living the culture of the locals.
We also offer trout fishing. “Tico trout” (Tico being a colloquial term for a native Costa Ricans) are found high in the central mountains of the country, and offer an opportunity to catch trout in a unique and different atmosphere. The area we will fish is also the nesting area of the splendid quetzal, a rare colorful bird, sought after by birders the world over. You will undoubtedly run into birders with binoculars, as you wade through the pristine trout stream waters of the Rio Savegre. Here we drop the 12 wt. clubs and fish 2 to 4wt lines. Small number 16 and 18 royal wulfs and mosquitos as well as nymphing patterns work well. The trout streams are just less than 3 hours from San Jose.