Lots of Yellowfin Tuna Offshore
Capt. Michael Alligood
July 28, 2016
Los Suenos - Saltwater Fishing Report
Right now the billfish numbers are a bit spotty - catching 1-8 a day is the norm. A few sailfish and some marlin around offshore. On better days you may encounter up 10-15 sailfish bites, and a couple marlin bites. Exceptional days a boat may have up to several marlin bites, especially if you get lucky and find a log floating with allot of bait on it. The Marlin bite should remain good, and even improve as we move into the fall months.
Mahi Mahi - locally known as "dorado" - have been very scarce but should begin showing up in the next month or so, and will be pretty common in October.
There have been steady numbers of yellowfin tunas offshore most days, if you can find them. But they are definitely out there, somewhere, every day. There is no sure spot to go to find them, around here they are traveling around with spinner dolphins in open water usually between 20 and 45 miles offshore. So we usually begin our days offshore by putting out our trolling spread for sailfish and marlin and begin heading offshore to cover some ground.
It helps to have a boat with good radar an know how to use it to find birds in the distance, which greatly increases the zone of awareness. So you may possibly locate flock of feeding seabirds up to 5 miles away on a good day. Stabilized binoculars work great in conjunction with radar, helping you view and confirm targets like birds a few miles away. a person with very good eyesight who know what they are looking for and which way they should be looking for it will really only be able to make out the same birds at just about a mile distance. it also helps to have a few other boat out looking as well, cooperating and staying in VHF radio contact.
Fortunately our weather has been very nice, calm, sunny and cooperative most days, as the rainy days and wind chop will reduce visibility and fill your radar with clutter making it difficult to distinguish birds unless you happen to drive right up on them.
Finding the tunas provide allot of action and tough fight, plus you can take them home to eat, so our guest are always happy any day they walk off the dock with several bags of tuna.
We have had allot of luck catching them casting poppers on spinning gear, which is probably the most fun you can catch tuna. Guests love being able to cast a rod in their own hands and see exciting topwater explosions as the yellowfin crash the popper.
There are a few rare days we don't find them and just catch a few billfish and/or run back inshore to bottom fish or chase roosterfish. Inshore has been pretty good though some days are definitely easier than others. Some days you do have to work at it, and be willing to run around a try a few different spots. We still run 15-30 miles from the marina, and run a few miles from spot to spot trying different things until we find productive action.
Bottom fishing in 150-450 ft. has been pretty good for snappers and groupers, which you can also take to eat. Most are not very big - being 3-20 pounds but provide allot of "hands on" type fishing to keep anglers busy. We usually mix it up with some live baiting in shallower spots for roosterfish, amberjack's and bigger cubera snappers.
EPIC Sportfishing Costa Rica
[email protected]
USA call: 561-459-5355
CR call: 011-506-8718-2357
Target Species:
Yellowfin Tuna, Marlin, Mahi-mahi, Sailfish
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