The red-hot marlin bite from December 2021 carried right on through to the start of the new year, and may have gotten even better! The entire month anglers along the Central & Southern Pacific were treated to non-stop marlin action and plenty of dorado and tuna to take home for dinner. January also marked the start of the billfish tournament season here in Costa Rica, with the Marina Pez Vela in Quepos hosting the massive Pelagic Rockstar Tournament while the Los Suenos Resort & Marina hosted the first leg of it’s Los Suenos Triple Crown. Ready below for our full Costa Rica Fishing Report – January 2022.

Historically speaking, the best marlin months of the year tend to be December, January, and February, then sometime in February the numbers thin out a bit and the sailfish numbers start to increase and dominate the fishing reports. Every year is different, but this 2022 Costa Rica’s peak billfish season seems to be following that script to a ‘T’. The red hot marlin bite from December carried right over to the start of 2022 and the fleets from Los Suenos, Quepos, and the Southern Zone showed why Costa Rica has one of the best marlin fisheries in the entire world. Not only was the marlin bite steady with action every day, it was plentiful with several boats reporting two, three, and four releases throughout the first half of the month. Our good friend Captain Michael Alligood had SEVEN blue marlin bites on Jan 18th alone! While most of these bites were from blue marlin, there were still a good number of black marlin caught for those who had the patience to slow troll live bonitos over the reefs and high points. A welcome surprise is the number of striped marlin that have stuck around, which has helped complete a few Grand Slams towards the end of the month.

Los Suenos Fishing

The sailfish numbers were still pretty pedestrian for much of the January, but no one was complaining as long as they were lucky enough to nab one of the many marlin we saw last month. If anglers missed out on a marlin however they tended to come back to the docks a little disappointed by the slow billfish bite, so it was kind of “marlin or bust” around here to start the year. Around mid January reports started to surface of a large population of sailfish hanging out in southern Costa Rica by the Osa Peninsula. That has happened in past years, and it’s usually only a matter of time until they move north into the range of the fleets out of Quepos and Los Suenos. The final five days of the month that finally happened, and boats started to report double digit sailfish bites for the first time all year.

The first two major billfish tournaments of the year were also held last month, the first leg of the Los Suenos Triple Crown and the Pelagic Rockstar Classic down in Quepos. The first leg of the LSTC (Jan 27-28-29) saw 37 boats release a respectable total of 659 sailfish and 159 marlin over the course of the three day tourney. The winner was ‘Miss AC’ with 32 sailfish and 5 marlin, beating out Team Galati by just three sailfish. The 6th annual Pelagic Rockstar Tournament was held in at the Marina Pez Vela in Quepos from Jan 14-16. Dubbed “Central America’s largest and richest Sportfishing tournament“, the total purse of $1,000,000 drew a total of 71 teams. In two days they totaled 245 marlin and 584 sailfish released. Below is our full daily Costa Rica Fishing Report – January 2022 to get an idea of how good the offshore fishing in Costa Rica has been.

Pelagic Rockstar Tournament, Quepos Costa Rica

 

Jan 2 – Big Eye II – 2/4 on sailfish, 3 tuna, 1 dorado
Jan 2 – Captain Tom – 2 blue marlin, 3 tuna, 1 dorado
Jan 3 – Good Day – 2/3 on blue marlin and 2 dorado (missed 2 sailfish)
Jan 4 – Captain Tom – 3 for 5 on blue marlin and one sailfish
Jan 4 – Good Day – 3 blue marlin and 1 black marlin
Jan 5 – Geaux Fly – 4 blue marlin & 5 dorado
Jan 6 – Go Fish – 5 blue marlin, 1 black marlin, 1 sail, and 1 dorado
Jan 7 – Captain Tom – 3 sailfish and 4 dorado
Jan 8 – Geaux Fly – 3 blue marlin, 2 sailfish, 1 mahi
Jan 11 – Big Eye II – 3/4 on marlin, 4 sailfish, and 4 dorado
Jan 12 – Monkeyshine – 1 blue marlin, 10 sails, 6 dorado
Jan 15 – Predator – 3 for 5 on blue marlin + 1 sailfish
Jan 16 – Geaux Fly – 2 blue marlin, 4 sailfish, 5 mahi
Jan 18 – Epic – 4 for 7 on blue marlin + several mahi
Jan 22 – Big Eye II – 2 blue marlin, 1 striped marlin, and 5 yellowfin tuna
Jan 23 – Geaux Fly – 3 blue marlin and 4 sails released
Jan 24 – Captain Tom – 2 blue marlin, 4 sailfish, 2 mahi
Jan 25 – Top Fly – SLAM 5/7 on blue marlin, 5/6 on sailfish, 1 striped marlin, 1 mahi
Jan 26 – Geaux Fly – 1 marlin and 8 sailfish
Jan 27 – Big Eye II – 9 for 14 on sailfish
Jan 28 – Top Fly – SLAM 3 blue marlin, 3 sailfish, and 1 striped marlin
Jan 29 – Captain Tom – 1 blue marlin, 1 dorado, 10 tuna
Jan 31 – Sea Fly – 13 sailfish and 4 mahi
The inshore fishing was productive as well on both sides of the country. Tarpon fishing in Costa Rica is at it’s best during the spring season (mid-Jan to mid-May) and fall season (Sept & Oct), so after a very slow fall season fortunately the tarpon bite started the year off red hot despite some angry seas for much of the month. Even though many anglers were stuck in the river mouths, many enjoyed days of 10+ bites of 100+ lb fish. On the Pacific, roosterfish was at the top of the list for many inshore anglers and once again Costa Rica proved it has one of the best populations in the world. Some big snook were also boated near the Naranjo and Savegre river mouths just south of Quepos.
Costa Rica tarpon fishing Los Suenos fishing
roosterfish costa rica dorado Costa Rica