Service Type: Sportfishing
Location:

Golfito and Playa Zancudo:

          
Golfito is the center of activity on Costa Rica 's southern coast. It's a rare day during peak season that boats don't raise a dozen sails and a marlin or two, along with plenty of jacks, runners, mackerel and perhaps an amberjack, roosterfish or big snapper inshore. Light-tackle fishing inside the bay off Golfito, with its profusion of small coves and rocky islets, as well as off the shoreline, is good for small barracuda and snapper, corbina and occasional snook to more than 40 pounds.

Across the bay there are lodges on Playa Zancudo, a narrow peninsula with miles of beach on the ocean side and the confluence of three rivers on the other side. Operators offer day charters and three- to five-day packages with all meals, lodging and an open bar. One of the lodges there has posted more than 40 IGFA records on various species. Fishing the drop-off outside Matapalo produces sails, marlin, tuna and other blue-water species, and inshore there are roosters that average more than 30 pounds (a couple up to 100 pounds), grouper, jacks, barracuda, trophy-size Pacific cubera snapper and more.

Zancudo operators also offer snook trips that have become increasingly popular during the past couple of years, working the river mouths and estuary at Zancudo, while some of the boats out of Golfito fish snook north of there, at the mouth of the Río Esquinas. C

Marlin: August through December is peak season, but an occasional blue or black may be taken most any month if the water temperature is up. This year, the marlin bite was incredible from February in March, with some to 750 pounds.

Sailfish: A few taken off and on year-round with the exceptional fishing from December through March. Often slows from April into early June, then picks up again and begins to peak in August or September.

Tuna : Best fishing for the bigger ones corresponds with marlin and sailfish season, but the schools of footballs can nearly always be found outside.

Dorado: Best runs are traditionally from late May through October

Wahoo: Not abundant, but an occasional wahoo may be taken most any time of the year while trolling offshore for billfish, or around the structure off Matapalo.
Roosterfish: Region is famous for its big roosters and they can be caught virtually any month of the year, some to nearly 100 pounds.

Snook: All year, but best from middle or late May through July and January and February.
 

Region: South Pacific