In North America, the spring season is an exciting time ushering in transition and growth. Here in Costa Rica, it’s been a month of big changes, expansions, and transformations for Crocodile Bay too! Starting with our name: Crocodile Bay Resort has evolved into Crocodile Bay Marina. In other huge news: our fishing guests are now enjoying the luxury accommodations and amenities provided by our newly-opened hotel, Botanika Osa Peninsula, Curio Collection by Hilton. The names may have changed, but the fishing remains the heart and soul of our operation at Crocodile Bay.

The month of March was full of pleasant surprises for our anglers in the water: from great weather, calm seas and exceptional fishing! For the last 3 fishing reports I mentioned how impressive the marlin bite has been this season and it continues to surprise us. The waters around the Osa Peninsula are usually good for blue marlin but the numbers of marlin we have been seeing recently is incredible. It has definitely been the highlight of the month! We have had many anglers scratch marlin off their bucket list. This month alone our fleet raised over 110 blue marlin, giving our anglers more than one shot to hook up the fish-of-a-lifetime.

I’m happy to report on the fantastic fishing we had at Crocodile Bay in February. The Golfo Dulce continues to pleasantly surprise me with calm seas and a super-hot offshore bite. This February our guests were landing plenty of dorado, wahoo, tuna, sailfish and higher than usual numbers of marlin. We are at the tail end of the dorado season and the big bulls are continuing to smash guests’ baits and lures. It is impressive how the 50+ lbs. bulls will smash lures as violently as a marlin.

January was fantastic for both inshore and offshore fishing. We started to see a good number of sailfish coming up to our spreads and taking our bait like candy. Also, yellowfin tuna are still coming in which makes for some really fresh sashimi. But the main surprise has been the hot marlin bite: We have had a phenomenal season for marlin, and so many of our guest have been checking it off their bucket list. What makes it even better is raising marlin only 7 to 12 miles offshore.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2022 blesses you with lots of joy, happiness, and of course, many fish! I have to start by saying how impressive marlin fishing has been for the past month.

November is considered a transitional month as we enter our “verano”, or perhaps better known as Costa Rica’s summer season. This is perhaps one of my favorite months of the year as anglers have an excellent opportunity to target a variety of species coupled with the enjoyment of a rainforest found to be lush, green and awake with wildlife activity. The transition has treated us fairly well this year with bright, beautiful sunny days, calm waters, and of course a bite that continued to surprise us daily.

The beautiful Osa Peninsula has certainly earned her reputation as Costa Rica’s fishing paradise. The month of October supported that fame by pleasuring us with incredible weather, fairly calm water and of course, hungry fish.

This September carried some amazing weather where our anglers took pleasure in fishing calm waters with beautiful tropical skies. September is usually known as a great month for anglers to target the larger roosterfish and cubera snapper. We had anglers who were able to catch their “trophy fish” after years of fishing for those 60-plus-pound roosters, along with the big cubera snapper; two species which are amongst that dream catch for our bottom fishing anglers. We have also seen a few 40+ pounders this month, which was definitely breathtaking!

Inshore, everyone is catching fish. Close to the beach, there are lots of light tackle roosters in the 8 to 15-pound range, as well as jack crevalle. If you work areas like Matapalo, some bigger roosters up to 50-pounds have taken baits. Plenty of snapper and other bottom fish action. Some grouper have been taken in deeper water as well as a return of Bluefin trevally and African pompano.

Last month I reported that the marlín were starting to move into our area. If you ask my wife she might not agree, but I sometimes get it right. It is all a part of better marine management here in Costa Rica. For the last 6 years, the tuna purse seiners have been moved off the coast by 45 miles. This protects one of the marlin´s principle food sources, the yellowfin tuna.