With hundreds of miles of coastline, the Guanacaste region offers spectacular fishing options in Costa Rica. Although most of the competitive offshore fishing tournaments in Costa Rica are typically organized along the Southern Pacific coast, Guanacaste and the entire Northern Pacific region is a haven for deep sea anglers who wish to enjoy their fishing vacations. This article is brought you by Re/Max Ocean Surf and Sun, located in Tamarindo Beach.

Although sport fishing in Guanacaste is pretty much a year-round endeavor, fishing enthusiasts who enjoy catching certain species are better off paying attention to their migratory, feeding and mating habits. For example, snapper is a species that can be caught just about anytime, and 50-pound cubera snappers are a nice surprise when they bite; however, really big marlin species will swim around the waters off the Papagayo Peninsula from September to the end of the green (rainy) season.

The offshore waters of Guanacaste are home to the Thermal Convection Dome, an incredibly rich concentration of phytoplankton that attracts schools upon schools of fish and other marine creatures. To this effect, you could actually catch marlin at anytime during the year, but to do so outside of the late rainy season will require a special charter excursion to take you about 50 miles offshore.

For a real challenge, anglers visiting Guanacaste from the holiday season until April can cast their lines for sailfish, which tend to swim closer to the coastline in search of squid and octopus to feed on. During sailfish season, fishing boats are allowed to reel in up to five sailfish per day; going farther offshore outside of the season months will yield less of this species.

Yellow-fin tuna is a delicious species that most anglers in Costa Rica want to keep for culinary purposes. In Guanacaste, the best season for big tuna, which is defined around 200 pounds, is between June and September.