Tarpon Fishing along Costa Rica's Caribbean coast can vary more from one day to another than from month to month. Historically, tarpon fishing is promoted by lodges on Costa Rica's east coast from about December through mid-May, while snook peak from about September through November. But the fish are there year-round, and it's mostly a matter of weather, which can change overnight. Rainy season starts about mid-May, and action slows for awhile as the dirty water sweeps out of the rivers.

Facilities catering to anglers are located at Samay Lagoon, Parismina and Tortuguero, and there are three quality fishing lodges around the Río Colorado. The Rain Goddess luxury houseboat serves as a floating lodge based near the mouth of the San Juan River, in Nicaragua, and provides access to miles of jungle rivers and small hidden lakes that others rarely fish.

Lodges offer full service, including transportation from San José, comfortable accommodations, meals, boats and guides. There are no roads to this area, and access is via the in-country airlines or charter flights, or by boat through the Tortuguero Canal system from Limón.

Most operators on the Caribbean have 23-foot center consoles that are able to get out the river mouths more frequently for tarpon when the surf is up and often connect on barracuda, jacks, kingfish, sierra, tripletail, cubera, grouper, jewfish, wahoo, tuna to over 100 pounds and the occasional Atlantic sailfish and blue marlin.

Light-tackle fishing up river in the backwaters and lagoons is unsurpassed, especially when the calba, or fat snook (Centropomus parallelus) are running. These are the small snook that swarm the Río Colorado area from about September through November, sometimes overlapping as much as a month either way. They average about five pounds, with eight and nine pounders fairly common. Rainbow bass (guapote), mojarra, vieja, machaca, catfish, drum, alligator gar and other light-tackle species also abound, so bring along that bass rod or a light spinning outfit.

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