Marlin Fishing Costa Rica

In this episode, we’re blue water fishing the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica. This is a bucket list fish for sure. One thing that motivates me to keep making YouTube videos, is to capture “bucket list” fish of all types of species. Well on this trip, we hook and land a 200+ pound marlin!

The Catch

This was a very special catch; it was Tristen’s first time offshore fishing AND her first offshore fish! What a way to get introduced to offshore fishing huh? This trip was definitely one for the most epic fishing trips I’ve been on. If you ever go to the Pacific Side of Costa Rica… GO FISHING. Charter an offshore trip and go have the time of your life. The cost of a small fishing charter in Costa Rica is about $1,000 USD on the low end. The beautiful thing about fishing offshore in Costa Rica is how close deep water is to the coast. You can fish 400-500 feet of water with a 45 minute boat ride. So the deep water is very close to shore in comparisons to many coastal areas around the world. This extreme (blue water) depth is the habitat of pelagic species of fish. These are fish that live in open water, often migrating 1,000s of miles of ocean over the course of their lives. Pelagic species of fish are highly coveted in the fish market for rarity and food quality. Pelagic species of fish include; marlin, tuna, swordfish, sailfish, mahi mahi, wahoo, mackerel, cobia and more. So in Costa Rica, this type of fishing is just a short trip from the coast.

The Charter

The charter fishing company that we used for this trip was AWESOME! The captain and deckhands were knowledgeable, friendly and safety minded. This company is Costa Rica Sunrise Sport Fishing.

They picked us up from the beach of our lodging. When we arrived on the boat (Freedom), they asked us what species of fish we wanted to target for the day. We told them we wanted to fish for mahi, marlin and pelagic species. And they swiftly got to setting everything up as we traveled off to sea. The crew set up a spread of baited lines and decoys, and we trolled around the weed lines just offshore from the coast. The waves were a little choppy, but not too bad. As I’d say the seas were about 6 foot. Nothing like the water conditions I’ve seen in Alaska (10-20 ft swells). But when it comes to surface fishing, a little wind and chop is a good thing. As it hides the angler’s presence and gives the bait a lifelike movement in the water. So we trolled around for a few hours with the motor roaring, when the rod went down and the reel started screaming. Things started happening pretty fast after that; the deck hand readied the reel for Tristen to get seated in the fishing chair, the marlin immediately started jumping and ripping off line from the reel, the captain slammed the boat in reverse to give the deck hand a chance to get set and catch up. Once we had the fish on the line, it took about 45 minutes to get this fish into the boat. So the youtube video is greatly condensed. Tristen was first up being that it was her first offshore fishing trip. She fought this marlin until she couldn’t go on. She would fight the marlin up to the boat, and with a burst of strength, the marlin would take off 70 yards of line. Then Tristen would have to fight to take that line back up again. It was a battle! Once she tapped out, I took over. And was able to get this beautiful fish to the boat. Once at the boat, the captain came down to help get it on deck for pictures. The marlin was on deck for just a few seconds before it was put back into the water, revived, and released alive. On the ride back to the beach, we enjoyed cold Costa Rican Beer. We highly recommend CR Sunrise Sport Fishing in Papagayo Costa Rica.