Fishing in Costa Rica in January

Part of our complete guide: Costa Rica Fish Species: The Complete Guide

The short answer

January is one of the easiest months to plan a Costa Rica fishing trip, as long as you pick the right coast. On the central and southern Pacific, it's the start of sailfish high season, with dry weather, calm mornings and numbers building toward the February peak. Roosterfish are in one of their best months all along the Pacific. Guanacaste is windy, so its boats fish inshore in the mornings, and the Caribbean is a snook month with tarpon around between cold fronts.

This page goes deeper on January than our month-by-month guide to Costa Rica's fishing seasons, which covers the whole year. Here you'll find what's biting on each coast, the weather and sea, the holidays and festivals that fill hotels and roads, the tournaments, and how to book well in a busy month.

January at a glance

These ratings come from the site's season chart, which rates every fish as best, good or slow in each month. Every fish can be caught outside its best months; this is about the odds.

The pattern behind the table is simple. On the central and southern Pacific, January is dry season and billfish season at once. In the far north, the same dry season brings strong offshore winds, so the action moves inshore. And the Caribbean runs on its own calendar, wet in January but with snook at their best.

The Pacific coast in January

Guanacaste: roosterfish and the wind

January is the heart of the windy season in Guanacaste. The Papagayo winds blow from the northeast, off the land and out to sea, in surges that can last several days, and they make the run offshore rough, especially in the far north around Bahía Salinas and the Gulf of Papagayo. Crews deal with it by leaving at first light, fishing close to the rocks in the lee of headlands, and running south toward Flamingo and Tamarindo on the days when the gulf is white. Our page on the Papagayo winds explains how they work.

The good news is that roosterfish don't mind. January is in their best stretch on our chart, the cold water that the wind pulls up brings plenty of bait to the points, and the water is often clear. Snapper and jacks fill in around the same rocks. Our roosterfish in Guanacaste guide covers the spots and methods.

Offshore, sailfish are around in "good" numbers on calmer days, but this isn't the northern peak. One telling detail from Todd Staley's billfish guide for FECOP, the Costa Rican sport fishing federation: one Flamingo charter operation he lists moves its boat to Quepos in January to fish the central coast's prime season. If billfish are your main goal this month, you might do the same.

Nicoya Peninsula: inshore from the beach

Along the Nicoya coast, January is an inshore month: roosterfish, snapper, jacks and Sierra mackerel off Sámara, Carrillo, Santa Teresa and the southern tip, mostly from pangas launched off the beach. Boats from Tambor and Montezuma on the southern tip can reach the edge of the central Pacific sailfish grounds on calm days. Our guide to panga fishing on the Nicoya Peninsula explains what a beach launch is like, and the Gulf of Nicoya fishes for corvina and snapper in every month. The Nicoya Peninsula guide has the towns and crews.

Central Pacific: sailfish season gets going

This is the coast most people mean when they talk about January fishing in Costa Rica. Sailfish start returning in late November, the season is well under way by January, and the bite usually builds to a peak in February. Adventure Tours Costa Rica, which runs boats from Los Sueños, names December to March as the strongest sailfish months, and Staley's guide quotes boats at both Los Sueños and Marina Pez Vela in Quepos putting their sailfish peak from January to April.

There's more than sailfish. Adventure Tours gives November to March as the best months for roosterfish inshore, and puts yellowfin tuna in good numbers from January. Dorado and marlin are around offshore in smaller numbers.

Boats fish roughly 15 to 40 miles out, which is why a full day is the better choice for billfish. If you're short on time, a half day inshore for roosterfish and snapper makes more sense. Our page on sailfish season on the Central Pacific covers the grounds and how a sailfish day works, and if you're based in the capital, see fishing near San José.

Southern Pacific: sailfish rising, big tuna still around

In the far south, around Puerto Jiménez, Golfito, Zancudo and Drake Bay, January is a crossover month offshore. Crocodile Bay Resort in Puerto Jiménez says the number of sailfish begins to increase in January, building toward what it calls prime time in February and March. Its notes also put yellowfin tuna of 100 to 250 pounds offshore in December and January, along with marlin and dorado, though its own calendar says those start to taper off during the month. Our guide to big yellowfin on the Southern Pacific goes into how crews find them.

Inshore, January is the start of the best roosterfish stretch in the Golfo Dulce, which runs to about April, with snapper, jacks and grouper around the rocks of Cabo Matapalo. The gulf is sheltered, so small boats fish it comfortably almost every day. The Southern Pacific guide covers the whole zone.

The Caribbean in January

The Caribbean is wet in January (Limón averages about 320 mm of rain this month), and cold fronts from the north can bring several days of rain and big seas in a row. In between, there's good fishing.

Freshwater in January

Freshwater fishing follows the water level, and January is when the levels start to fall. That's good news, because fish crowd into the water that's left.

The freshwater fishing guide covers the rest.

Weather and sea in January

For anglers, wind and swell matter more than rain. A sunny January day in northern Guanacaste can still be too rough to run offshore, while a rainy morning on the Caribbean can be perfectly fishable inside the river. Our weather guide explains each coast's pattern.

El Niño and January 2027

Ocean conditions shift from year to year, and January 2027 looks set to be an El Niño year. In November 2026, El Observador reported NOAA giving El Niño a 96% chance of lasting until February 2027, and CRHoy reported that Costa Rica's weather service, the IMN, expects its strong effects to continue into early 2027, with temperatures up to 2 °C above average from November to January.

What that does to the fishing is hard to call. A 2023 study of charter catch records from Herradura and Quepos, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, found that the El Niño and La Niña cycle was the main reason one sailfish season differed from the next, but it doesn't make every El Niño year better or worse. Ask your crew what the water has been like in the weeks before you go.

Holidays, festivals and crowds

January is busy, and not only because of visitors from the north.

• New Year's Day (January 1) is a national holiday, and the first days of January are the end of the Christmas rush. Hotels at the beach and boats at the big marinas fill up well ahead.
• Costa Rican school holidays. The new school year doesn't start until March 1 in 2027, under the education ministry's calendar, so Costa Rican families are on holiday all January and February. Expect busy beach towns and weekend traffic.
• Fiestas de Santa Cruz. Guanacaste's big mid-January fiesta honours the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas, with folk dancing, marimba music and Costa Rican-style bull events. In 2026 it ran from January 14 to 18.
• Fiestas de Palmares. The country's biggest January festival, in the Central Valley town of Palmares, ran from January 15 to 26 in 2026, with a tope (a traditional horse parade) and a carnival. It draws big crowds on the roads west of San José.

January tournaments

Two big billfish tournaments fill the central Pacific marinas this month.

Those numbers show how good the January bite can be, but they also show how full the marinas get. Our tournaments guide explains how entry works.

Booking a January trip

Our trip planning guide covers flights, transfers and what to ask a crew, and for the year as a whole, go back to the Costa Rica fishing seasons guide. If January doesn't suit, see what the other side of the calendar looks like in our guide to fishing in Costa Rica in July.