If this doesn’t make all of you avid saltwater anglers scurry to get on the next plane to Costa Rica, we don’t know what will!

Los Sueños Marina, reputedly the finest marina on the Pacific coast south of the US border (Cabo San Lucas in Mexico and Viña del Mar in Chile might beg to differ, but who cares), is hosting the First Annual Los Sueños Signature Triple Crown tournament. There are three legs, each with three fishing days: Leg I began January 23; Leg II: February 26-March 1; and Leg III: March 12-15.

The Triple Crown is the melding of two ultra-successful tournaments – the decade long Signature Billfish Series and the Marlin Invitational. Forty-two boats along with 200 experienced anglers converged on Los Sueños to participate. There is prize money for the top finishers in each of the legs. The winning team after the three legs takes home a guaranteed cash prize of $100,000.00.

Boats can leave the marina at 6 AM. Lines go in at 8 AM, lines out at 4 PM. Official results are posted at 7 PM. Tallies come in throughout the day.

Day 1 of the first leg was incredible! The 42 boats released 692 Sailfish and four Marlin. Pelese, the top boat (3000 points), released 30 Sailfish. Second-place Pescadora released 28, while Muy Caliente and Gunsmoke released 25 each. Thirty-eight of the 42 boats released at least 10 Sailfish.

This is a record for any day of any Los Sueños tournament, and perhaps for any day of any tournament patronized by International Game Fish Association and Billfish Foundation.

The tournament’s moving ticker makes it tough to determine who is doing best on Day 2, but as of 12;20 PM local time, the boats had released 260 Sailfish and four Marlin. Overall totals for the one and a half days, 12 hours of fishing time, were 952 Sailfish and eight Marlin.

Most of the boats and teams entered in the Los Sueños Signature Triple Crown tournament come from the private side of the marina, but there are several popular charter boats competing as well: the 42ft Spanish Fly with Captain Daniel Espinoza; the 42ft Dragin Fly with Captain James Smith; the 43ft Tijerita with Captain Bubba Carter; the 38ft Macushla with Captain Timmy Blair, to name a few. All of these, and many more of Los Sueños’ top boats and captains, can be chartered through Americana Sportfishing.

This exclusive article comes courtesy of Americana Sportfishing which has been arranging sportfishing charters and complete sportfishing vacations in Costa Rica for the past 20 years.