Costa Rica Fishing Report – April 2021

After some very hit or miss billfishing in February & March, April delivered more of what we are accustomed to during Costa Rica’s peak billfish season. Too many times April is viewed as the scrap month of the peak billfish season: the broken chips at the bottom of the bag or that lone skinny slice of pizza with no pepperoni on it. For the second year in a row April turned out to be the best and most consistent month of the peak season as anglers enjoyed great fishing from start to finish. Below is our full Costa Rica Fishing Report – April 2021.

The month started off on fire with most boats seeing at least 7-10 sailfish per day, including a couple stellar days of 20+ fish by Captain Dana Thomas on his new Hoo’s Your Daddy II boat. Unlike the previous two months where the fleet from Los Suenos had to run north to find sailfish and the fleet from Quepos had to run south, last month both marinas enjoyed consistency and variety within their normal ranges. For the first twenty days of the month the Los Suenos fishing charters came back reporting anywhere from 8-20 sailfish per day while the fleet from Quepos was closer to 5-12. Below are some of the best reports from each day.

April 1 – Hoos Your Daddy II – 10 for 20 on sails
April 2 – Go Fish – 4/8 on sails, 5 tuna, 1 mahi
April 3 – Good Day – 8 for 10 on sails
April 3 – Hoo’s Your Daddy II – 20 for 26 on sails
April 4 – Good Day Too – 13 sailfish and 1 tuna
April 5 – Super Fly – 17 sailfish released
April 6 – Good Day Too – 10 sails and 2 mahi
April 7 – Captain Tom – 9 sailfish and 3 tuna
April 8 – Gamefisher II – Raised 24 sailfish
April 9 – Bucket List – 5 for 9 on sails
April 11 – Go Fish – 2/3 on sails, 2 tuna, 2 mahi
April 12 – Open Fly – 8 sailfish and 3 dorado
April 14 – Gamefisher II – 6 for 13 on sailfish
April 15 – Geaux Fly – 8 sailfish + 5 yellowfin tuna
April 16 – Open Fly – 4 sails and 5 tuna
April 17 – Epic – 7/8 on sails and 1 mahi
April 18 – Geaux Fly – 14 sailfish released
April 19 – Super Fly – 10 sails, 4 tuna, 1 mahi
April 20 – Go Fish – 18 for 25 on sails
April 22 – Good Day Too – Raised 12 sailfish fly fishing + 2 dorado
April 24 – Open Fly – 1 blue marlin, 7 sailfish, 1 tuna
April 25 – Top Fly – 8 sailfish released
April 26 – Top Fly – 7 sails and 3 tuna
April 28 – Bucket List – 5 for 8 on sailfish
April 30 – Good Day – 5 tuna + 2 dorado

Last month Costa Rica hosted the Offshore World Championship from April 11-16. Held in Quepos at the beautiful Marina Pez Vela every year since 2013, this year’s tourney was a bit subdued due to the pandemic but still full. In past years there would be as many as 50-60 teams competing, but this year only 15 teams competed. In four days of fishing they racked up 130 sailfish, 16 marlin, and 10 dorado. The winning team was Presidential Flamingo Fishing Rodeo from here in Costa Rica while top boat was the 42′ Maverick yacht named Frenzy.

April isn’t usually a month we peg for targeting dorado, but last month produced trophy fish after trophy fish. Several giant mahi over 60″ were gaffed, a couple of them so big they started the convos about what the world record is (it’s 87 lbs, caught here in Costa Rica back in 1976). Usually our best months for targeting the adult dorado are November & December, and then our green season months of May-Sept. Green season started early here with a lot of rain in April, which is typically the hottest & driest month of the year, so perhaps the dorado were ahead of schedule too! Take a look at these beauties landed by CAF anglers Scott C. & Scott S.

The inshore fishing continued to be steady & consistent with roosterfish, cubera snapper, several big red snapper, a few more snook, and lots of jacks being the most caught last month. Over on the Caribbean, April is usually prime time for tarpon fishing in Costa Rica thanks to calm seas and sunny weather. The weather and the Caribbean cooperated, but the tarpon unfortunately proved surprisingly hard to get. On days with weather like we had last month we might hope to jump ten or more tarpon, but most days last month only produced 3-4 bites. The trade off was in the insane jack crevalle bite, frenzied surface boils and all, where our anglers caught up to 15 in a day (and could have caught twice that many).